Peraton Secures IARPA Contract to Evaluate Cyberpsychology-Based Defense Methods

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has awarded Peraton a contract to validate cyberpsychology-based defenses under the Reimagining Security with Cyberpsychology-Informed Network Defenses program.

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ReSCIND, expected to run for four years, aims to identify the decision-making biases and cognitive vulnerabilities of cyber actors and use them to disrupt their attacks.

Under the program, Peraton will use its CyberVAN high-fidelity cyber environment as a test bed to develop and evaluate cyberpsychology-based defense methods. The effort aims to combat early and late-stage cyberattacks, Peraton said.

The cyber virtual assured network environment is designed to create a digital twin of large networks, including enterprise, military and hybrid networks, and enable users to design scenarios, collect data and perform in-depth performance analysis.

Besides Peraton, IARPA also awarded contracts to Charles River Analytics, GrammaTech, Raytheon and SRI International to conduct research and develop cyberpsychology-based defense technologies.

According to a request for information from IARPA posted in 2022, there is a lack of research efforts on the cognitive effects that influence the behavior of cyber actors.