Defence & Security Accelerator (DASA) is now awarding an additional £1m in Phase 2 funding to 3 teams to develop technology that predicts & then counters cyber-attacks.
Proposals
7 proposals received almost £1 million during Phase 1 – which means the total funding is around £2 million. DASA says it finds & then funds ‘exploitable technology & innovative solutions’ to give UK defence and security a strategic advantage over potential enemies while increasing UK prosperity.
Lead Organisations
The 3 lead organisations, working with 3 other organisations, awarded funding in Phase 2 of the DASA ‘Predictive Cyber Analytics’ competition are:
Bristol-based RiskAware Ltd award – around £450,000 in collaboration with the University of Southampton
Vauxhall-based decisionLab award – nearly £240,000 in collaboration with DIEM Analytics and Actica
Gloucestershire-based Montvieux Limited award – nearly £250,000
Proactively Defend
This work will develop, adapt & merge those new approaches looked at in Phase 1 of the competition, to proactively defend deployed UK military systems & networks from the fast developing threat of offensive cyber-action of aggressive adversaries.
Project Manager Rebecca Duncan explains: “Cyber-security has been in an arms race for decades, with hackers continuously exploiting new vulnerabilities while developers race to patch them. This DASA competition looks to get the UK ahead of these threats & better prepare us against & perhaps predict future cyber-attacks.
AI Revolution
“As our understanding of adversaries and attack patterns improves, increased computing power and data growth continues to drive the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution with multiple new possibilities emerging to keep the UK safe and prosperous.”
DASA Delivery Manager Robert Hammond-Smith went on to say: “Phase 2 seeks to further develop & enhance the predictive approaches while adapting them to the military environment. The work will allow MOD to better anticipate and mitigate the impact of cyber-attacks.”
