DISA Assumes Control of SharkSeer Cyber Tool

The Defense Information Security Agency assumed control of the SharkSeer cyber defense tool from the National Security Agency on June 30.

SharkSeer is a system comprising commercial, government and open-source systems that autonomously detect, alert and block malicious or anomalous elements on the Department of Defense Information Network. It was developed by NSA in 2015 and has been consistently updated by integrating new technologies wherever it is deployed, DISA said.

Some of SharkSeer’s capabilities are internet access provider protection, cyber situational awareness and data sharing across all network security levels and information dissemination with partners across the federal government, academia and private industry.

Alexis Grayson, Sharkseer program manager at DISA, said the agency will continue developing the platform by adding multifactor authentication, zero trust security and could-based security solutions to boost flexibility.

One of DISA’s notable works on SharkSeer was in 2020 when it awarded Parsons a potential five-year, $28 million task order to work on SkarkSeer 2.0. According to Parsons, SharkSeer 2.0 will mitigate zero-day cyberattacks and advanced persistent threats facing the Pentagon’s networks. Parsons was tasked to migrate, integrate, test, streamline, optimize and enhance SharkSeer functions across several operational boundaries.