DHS S&T Transition to Practice Program transitions eighth cybersecurity technology for commercialization

On December 13, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency announced the eighth cybersecurity technology transitioning to commercialization as a part of its Cyber Security Division’s (CSD) Transition to Practice (TTP) program.

ZeroPoint, an exploit detection and analytics tool funded by the National Science Foundation and developed by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has spun off as a startup company called ZeroPoint Dynamics. The technology focuses on analyzing documents, email, web content and server traffic for potentially hazardous content known as exploit payloads. With this technology, users will not need to guess whether a document is infected with malicious code and instead will be notified quickly before data is lost.

“Today, phishing and web-based attacks are all too familiar,” said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology Dr. Reginald Brothers. “Providing innovative, effective and user-friendly technology is essential to protecting against full-scale data breaches and S&T is proud to prioritize new developments in this arena.”

The TTP program complements the S&T process of funding projects through the full research-and-development lifecycle and into the commercial marketplace. Each fiscal year, the TTP program selects promising cybersecurity technologies developed with federal funding to incorporate into the 36-month transition-to-market program. TTP introduces these technologies to cybersecurity professionals around the country with the goal of connecting them to investors, developers and integrators who can advance the technology and turn it into commercially viable products.

In spring 2014, the TTP program identified ZeroPoint as a promising candidate for transition to the commercial marketplace. The key to the ZeroPoint approach is a patented “execution-of-data” technology that uses an advanced micro-operating system built into the analysis engine to enable fast, accurate inspections of data and memory to identify malicious code.

“In the past, detection approaches relied on previously observed attacks, which are complex and costly,” said CSD Director Douglas Maughan. “The ZeroPoint approach is a unique technology that provides fast, transparent and accurate detection to stop cyber adversaries from harming enterprise infrastructure and networks.

Source: DHS