SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Under an original OSD Phase I SBIR effort, Web Sensing developed a strategic technology portfolio, with an associated market analysis, that isolated 4 related network security products: a Data Diode, Virtual Isolated Network (VIN), High-Assurance Guard (HAG), and Secure Programmable Logic Controller (Secure-PLC). These products all share the same technology base, leveraging building blocks defined through High-Level Synthesis (HLS) configured within Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and System-on-Chip (SoC) Architectures. They provide a single-chip hardware base of trust that mitigates zero-day exploits, persistence, and reverse engineering. The initial Data Diode product was supported and developed under an OSD Phase II SBIR effort (AFRL Contract: FA8750-17-C-0267). It is now available commercially and marketed by MicroArx Corporation in two different form factors -- a single diode and a high-density unit: the former protects individual elements of industrial plant; the latter provides secure and reliable file and database replication. Under this DARPA Phase II Adoption, we are currently engaged in developing the VIN offering. This synthetic overlay network isolates designated traffic and allows it to be checked for validity through custom hardware parsers. In the first year of the effort we have already developed a prototype VIN PCB for Gigabit Ethernet and demonstrated how it can be used to provide validity checking of network traffic: This involved the realization of a bracket parser, in hardware, for individual Ethernet frames; encryption and the ability to handle multiple frames are ongoing activities. This proposal provides tasking for the second year of the effort, intended to generalize the range of applicability of the device and prepare it for market introduction.
