ZeroPoint Dynamics, a start-up company specializing in technology that can detect exploit payloads in email and Web content, will be commercialized through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Security Division’s (CSD) Transition to Practice (TTP) program.
Through the TTP program, CSD seeks to produce Federally funded cybersecurity tech at a broad scale. On Dec. 13, the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency announced that ZeroPoint will be the eighth cybersecurity technology to move through the TTP program. With ZeroPoint, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and created by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, users will be notified if a document is infected with malicious code before they open the message and receive a nasty surprise.
“Today, phishing and Web-based attacks are all too familiar,” said Reginald Brothers, undersecretary for S&T in a press release on the agency’s website. “Providing innovative, effective and user-friendly technology is essential to protecting against full-scale data breaches and S&T is proud to prioritize new developments in this arena.”
Every year, the TTP program selects one promising cybersecurity technology that was created with Federal funds and transitions that technology into the marketplace. The transition-to-market program lasts 36 months; over this period, TTP introduces the selected technology to cybersecurity professionals, investors, and developers across the country. ZeroPoint, which uses an advanced micro-operating system to quickly identify malicious code, was selected in the spring of 2014.
Twenty-four active technologies and 16 additional technologies have completed the TTP program. Eight TTP technologies—Quantum Secured Communications, Hyperion, Hone, NeMS, PathScan, PACRAT, LOCKMA, and ZeroPoint—have successfully transitioned to the marketplace.
“In the past, detection approaches relied on previously observed attacks, which are complex and costly,” said Douglas Maughan, CSD director. “The ZeroPoint approach is a unique technology that provides fast, transparent and accurate detection to stop cyber adversaries from harming enterprise infrastructure and networks.”
