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Galois Awarded $1.7 Million DHS Contract To Combat DDoS Attacks

Technical Area

Computer Security

Peer-to-peer collaboration approach enables organizations to act in concert to rapidly and effectively detect and mitigate DDoS attacks

Portland, OR – January 11th, 2015 – Galois today announced it has been awarded a $1.7 million contract by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to create technology that is capable of defending against large and sophisticated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The contract is part of the DHS S&T Cyber Security Division’s larger Distributed Denial of Service Defenses (DDoSD) program.

DDoS attacks can cripple even the largest organizations, but they are especially devastating for medium-sized and small businesses. The amount of traffic generated is sufficient to saturate their Internet connections several times over and it is a challenge to get an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to take the matter seriously and act quickly. Galois’ project, DDoS Defense for a Community of Peers (3DCoP), involves a peer-to-peer collaboration mechanism through which organizations work together to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks.

“Current DDoS defense systems are proving ineffective because they operate in isolation, which introduces delays in the detection, reporting, and response to a DDoS attack,” said Adam Wick, Research Lead, Mobile Security & Systems Software, Galois. “This delay is critical. It provides positive feedback to the attacker, who will continue to send more and more traffic at the target network. Our solution advances the state of DDoS defense by providing new tools that allow multiple defenders to coordinate their response, resulting in earlier detection and faster DDoS mitigation.”

DDoS attacks threaten financial institutions, news entities, universities, government agencies, and other critical infrastructure organizations. For this DHS contract, Galois aims to reduce these DDoS threats by:

  • Reducing mitigation response time by 50 percent, resulting in peak traffic reduction of 75 to 90 percent.
  • Reducing the time between the start of the attack and the detection of the attack by 25 percent.

As a result of these reductions, organizations will be able to detect and block DDoS attacks before reaching complete network saturation.

For more information on the project, visit the project page.

About Galois

Galois has been performing computer science research and development since 1999. With many of the world’s foremost expects in computer science and mathematics and a world-class team of programmers and engineers, Galois is uniquely positioned to take on the world’s most difficult challenges in computer science. Galois is a trusted partner in the defense and intelligence industries, proving the feasibility of cutting edge research as it applies to critical systems. Technology companies turn to Galois to build reliability, safety and security into their product development efforts from day one. For additional information, visit www.galois.com.