The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has assumed responsibility for the management and operations of the SharkSeer cyber defense tool previously managed by the National Security Agency (NSA), the agency announced on Monday.
SharkSeer officially transitioned from NSA to DISA on June 30 and celebrated the final transition on July 20, “marking the beginning of a new era in cybersecurity for the [Department of Defense (DoD)] Information Network, as DISA assumes responsibility for the program’s operations and management,” DISA said in a release.
DISA has been an active partner in SharkSeer since the beginning and was designated as the transition organization for the program in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
The tool is a collection of government, commercial, and open-source systems designed to detect and block malicious network traffic using automated and blocking mechanisms. The program was developed and engineered by NSA in 2015 as an adaptive platform capable of quickly integrating new technologies wherever SharkSeer systems are deployed.
According to DISA, SharkSeer complements the agency’s existing global defense-in-depth capabilities for cyber operations by “providing an orchestrated, behavioral analytic platform capable” of blocking suspicious or potentially malicious objects. The platform also provides unique threat data content to inform other defensive systems for mitigation.
“Geographically deploying the SHARKSEER capability at the 10 DISA-managed internet access points to monitor traffic provides an unprecedented level of visibility to the warfighter supporting the DoD cyber network defense incident response mission,” said Alexis Grayson, SharkSeer program manager at DISA.
DISA plans to further develop the systems by transitioning to a zero-trust framework, adding multifactor authentication capability, and using more cloud-based security tools, Grayson said.
