To aid in the war against cyber attacks, Air Force Research Lab’s Rome, N.Y., directorate has awarded a $1 million contract to 21st Century Technologies, Inc., an Austin, Tex.-based company founded in 1999 by two Massachusetts Institutes of Technology scientists. According to a company release, the work, which will involve use of the company’s “flagship intelligence analytics platform Lynxeon,” will take place primarily at Lackland AFB, Tex., where USAF wants to install its new cyber-centric 24th Air Force. According to an Austin American-Statesman report, company CEO Irene Williams said Lynxeon analyzes data from cyber attacks to identify patterns and methods that could ascertain future targets. She told the newspaper, “This is a new battlefront for us, and we feel … very fortunate to be at the forefront of this area.” The company release noted the widely reported July 4-8 attacks against numerous US government agencies and commercial Websites and stated that its pioneering software will aid discovery and prediction of such attacks to cut them off “long before it reaches its final destination.”
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
