AFRL Launches Cyber Research Project

The Air Force Research Lab intends to pursue technologies that will enable proactive defense of future cyber networks. According to a broad agency announcement that AFRL’s Information Directorate issued on Oct. 14, the lab has a pool of $49.9 million to spend in roughly equal increments over the next four fiscal years. The funds will be applied to promote research in six areas: strategic cyber defense, global cyber situational understanding, incorruptible data codes/executables, cybercraft (i.e., a trusted platform from which to launch and control cyber defenses), assured load-balancing enterprise (i.e., computer systems that tolerate, adapt, and/or gracefully degrade), and self-regenerating incorruptible enterprise (i.e., information systems that learn, regenerate themselves, and improve their performance). Earlier this month, the Air Force announced its intent to establish a new numbered air force under Air Force Space Command to oversee cyber activities. We’re still waiting on the details. But news of the NAF essentially squelched the service’s earlier plans to establish a new major command for cyber operations.