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Commodity Auxiliary Processors for Enhanced Software Tamper Protection (CAPESTAR)

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Air Force
Contract: FA8650-07-M-8122
Agency Tracking Number: O063-I10-1084
Amount: $99,638.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: OSD06-I10
Solicitation Number: 2006.3
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2006
Award Year: 2007
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2007-01-30
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2008-01-30
Small Business Information
9971 Valley View Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
United States
DUNS: 052062833
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Barry Trent
 Computer Scientist
 (952) 829-8019
 btrent@triticom.com
Business Contact
 Kenneth Thruber
Title: President
Phone: (952) 829-5864
Email: kthurber@atcorp.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Software plays an ever-increasing role in modern weapons systems. The consequences of enemies capturing and reverse engineering the software in these systems pose a real risk for the DoD. Anti-tamper technologies protect these assets by increasing the costs associated with extraction of this information by enemy forces. “Out-of-band” protection measures (involving trusted hardware modules) are considered to be most effective, with “in-band” protection measures (implemented only in software) being considered less effective. Increasingly, COTS systems include special-purpose auxiliary processors, such as dedicated graphics processors. These auxiliary processors can substitute for proprietary trusted hardware modules in a hybrid approach to increase the effectiveness of anti-tamper protection. To enhance existing “in-band” protection measures, Architecture Technology Corporation will leverage its extensive experience in software Anti-Tamper technologies to design and build a novel, hybrid anti-tamper approach: Commodity Auxiliary Processors for Enhanced Software Tamper Protection (CAPESTAR). CAPESTAR will move anti-tamper functionality off the main CPU onto COTS auxiliary processors within the system, providing increased resistance to tampering and also “locking” the software to a particular hardware configuration. CAPESTAR will function automatically and will not require any specialized programming knowledge, expertise, or experience related to the specifics of the COTS auxiliary processors used.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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