US Army selects Perspecta Labs to continue CRA research support

The US Army has awarded a task order to Perspecta Labs to perform work in support of the cybersecurity Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA) programme.

The potential $25m, five-year applied research and experimentation partner (AREP) task order requires Perspecta Labs to continue to perform applied research, maturation, experimentation and validation work.

The CRA programme was established by the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to research into cyber science to address the growing threat of cyberattacks targeting the service branch.

Cybersecurity CRA brings together the Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, CCDC C5ISR Center, industry and academia.

The aim of the research is to advance the foundations of ‘cyber science in the context of army networks’.

Perspecta Labs president Petros Mouchtaris said: “At Perspecta Labs, we pride ourselves on successfully transitioning the advanced research we conduct and innovative solutions we invent to real-world applications.

“We are excited to lead the efforts of transferring cyber technology research into operational capabilities to support army missions and provide warfighters with resilient, secure, intelligent networks in dynamic and hostile battlefield environments.”

The company has been performing research in support of the CRA since 2014.

In addition to applied research and experimentation, Perspecta Labs will also help the CRA in advancing the research into the field. Perspecta Labs is a research arm of US-based firm Perspecta.

In a press statement, Perspecta said: “Specifically, the company will leverage and extend its CyberVAN testbed to provide sophisticated capabilities for cyber experimentation in tactical, as well as strategic, environments.”

The CyberVAN testbed, which is designed by Perspecta Labs, provides a testing environment to support cybersecurity research for the CRA programme.

It enables the seamless transition of the CRA research to the US Army networks.