The Federal government spends more than $1 billion on unclassified cybersecurity research each year. However, researchers very often do not have the necessary resources to take the research to the marketplace. In addition, there is limited communication between researchers and the private sector commercialization community that has resulted in very little understanding of the transition process.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) www.dhs.gov tasked their Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) in their Cyber Security Division to create the Transition to Practice (TTP) program. The program identifies mature technologies that address an existing or imminent cybersecurity gap in public or private systems and assists in introducing new cybersecurity technology through partnerships and commercialization.
Recently, DHS announced that TTP helped develop a cybersecurity technology licensed for commercialization. The technology referred to as the “Physical and Cyber Risk Analysis Tool” (PACRAT) developed by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is able to assess cyber risks simultaneously with physical risks.
RhinoCorps, a small business and vulnerability assessment tool developer located in Albuquerque New Mexico is licensing the tool and plans to integrate PACRAT’s capabilities into their physical vulnerability assessment tool called Simajin. The assessment tool will then enable users to examine how their cybersecurity and physical security postures impact one another.
S&T anticipates that the successful transition of PACRAT to the commercial marketplace will help open the door to new technology partners and raise the visibility of other worthy technologies develop by the national labs as solution to complex cybersecurity challenges.
Email ST.TTP@hq.dhs.gov for more information on the TTP program.