Sandia National Laboratories, a multi-program laboratory operated by Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sandia Corp., opened the Cybersecurity Technologies Research Laboratory (CTRL), a center for cyber-security professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country to meet and discuss critical cyber-research issues. The lab is on the grounds of the Livermore Valley Open Campus, which is shared by Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National laboratories.
The lab is designed to be a center for the research and development of cyber-security solutions through technology, practices and policy, with a broad mission to promote stronger relationships between industry, academia and national laboratories. Sandias Center for Cyber Defenders (CCD) program, which has trained hundreds of college students in cyber-defense, is already in operation. The CTRL also houses a number of Sandia cyber-programs and will provide office space for academic and industrial partners.
With CTRL, we can run experiments and talk more freely about a wide range of cyber-research activities, and we can do so with a variety of U.S. and international collaborators but without some of the unrelated restrictions that are often associated with a national laboratory, Jim Costa, senior manager of computational sciences and analysis at Sandias California site, said in a press statement. The Bay Area is a hotbed for social media and computer companies of every type, and every product or service being developed today must be reliable and resilient. Any of it can be attacked by our adversaries, so the more we can facilitate technical discussions with our cyber-security brethren, the better.
Specifically, the lab will develop, test and help implement cyber-security approaches in real-world situations, promote the technical domains that support the advancement of cyber-security, work to lay the scientific and technical foundations required for robust cyber-security research and development, and act as a Bay Area resource for open work performed at the companys location in New Mexico. This summers Sandia/California CCD interns will also be housed in the CTRL facility.
At the same time, we can do these things in a uniquely controlled environment where we know what activities are taking place, and we can monitor who and what else is in the building, he continued. We look at CTRL like our own neighborhood hangout for Sandia and visiting cyber-professionals who need an open but secure place to meet and collaborate.