We received some bad news to end the year. Phase II of our Intrusion Detection and Security Monitoring of SCADA Networks project was not funded by DHS. The proposal scored very high, 18 out of 20. This put it in the High Priority / Funding Recommended category, and all of the comments on the review were very positive. Nevertheless, it lost out to some other proposals.

One of the weakest elements of this project was the commercial viability which was a factor in the DHS SBIR program. While the research results will have a significant impact on SCADA security, and are in fact in use today, it is harder to make a case that the research will lead to a growing business or business line. The research is probably better tailored to a research grant than a small business contract.

So we are out hunting for other sources of research funding. If you have any suggestions please send them to me at peterson@digitalbond.com

Phase II was going to allow Digital Bond to add significant, dedicated resources to the project. Without this funding we will continue the research at the Phase I level. See the next post for the Q1 plans.