CDA in the News
Cyber Defense Agency battles unknown foes
By Libby Raymond
The Business News
December 5, 2005
Sami Saydjari could be a hacker's worst nightmare. Founder and CEO of Cyber Defense Agency LLC, Saydjari has a very aggressive mission for his small, Wisconsin Rapids-based company: cut the national risk for information infrastructure attack in half within five years.
A tall order for a business with only 19 employees in five separate locations, including Washington, D.C., area, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, San Francisco, and Wisconsin Rapids. As its name might imply, Cyber Defense Agency focuses on defending information systems (computers) against potential attack by adversaries (hackers, organized crime, and national or state adversaries)of any class. The company assesses the risk of attack and attempts to determine where a client's system is most vulnerable. It then develops the security architecture, applying technology such as firewalls, virus detectors, and commercial office-shelf products that are available, and CDA recently competed for and won a $746,431 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Award, granted by the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense. It was one of 53Wisconsin companies to win more than $42 million in federal SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STIR) awards during the 18 months between Oct. 1, 2003, and March 31, 2005.
The companies were recognized at the 2005 SBIR/STTR Awards Banquet in October in Madison. SBIRs are set aside specifically for small Businesses and are designed to tap into the potential of small businesses, said Saydjari. "Often the big innovations happen in small businesses, because they have really good ideas and are fairly nimble." Various governmental departments set aside money and then list problems they need solved openly in an announcement that comes out twice a year. CDA reviews the announcements for security relevant ones and comes up with an idea to solve the problem. More information on the SBIR/STTR program can be found at www.wisconsinsbir.org. "We give our best tactical approach to a problem we find interesting on this very long list of problems, and then the people who sponsored that, in this particular case, the Air Force, reads it, evaluates it, and reviews it against hundreds of other proposals they get and say, 'Yeah, I like that idea,' and they award the SBIR," said Saydjari.
The problem CDA addressed for the Air Force was related to automated Red Teaming.
"Red Teaming is a Defense Department term for a group of people who are very smart and are able to simulate an adversary;' said Saydjari. "In military exercises you have the Blue Team, which is our forces. But we take some of our forces and train them in the techniques and. equipment of an adversary. At war games, we play Red against Blue so we understand better how to defend against ...