Video

Video by Oswaldo Delacruz

Attack-Sensing Software

Air Force Research Laboratory

Jan. 13, 2016 | 4:31

A virtual traffic jam caused by a particularly nasty computer worm – dubbed Code Red – shut down over 359,000 computers in less than 14 hours and threatened our nation’s capital in the summer of 2001.

Standing between Code Red and the White House’s web servers was CyberWolf, an enterprise-wide software program developed by a small, woman-owned business in Falls Church, Virginia. CyberWolf detected the early traces of Code Red, allowing it to block the rapidly replicating worm and prevent it from reaching the White House and other critical U.S. government servers.

CyberWolf was created with funding from an Air Force SBIR contract won in 2000 by Juanita Koilpillai, computer software engineer and founder of the company, Mountain Wave. Koilpillai, originally from India, started Mountain Wave in the basement of her home. Within two years, she had developed CyberWolf to the point where her company was acquired by internet security giant, Symantec.

Koilpillai credits the Air Force SBIR/STTR Program for much of her success, saying “Without the Air Force SBIR, there’s no way I as a woman and a person of color would have been taken seriously, and had a chance to develop what I wanted to develop.”

The CyberWolf success story is an example of the impact of the U.S. Air Force Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer Program, which funds R&D by small businesses / cooperative R&D projects with small businesses and non-profit U.S. research institutions. The Air Force SBIR / STTR program focuses on projects and services with the potential to develop into a product for military or commercial sectors.

From 2000-2013, the Air Force invested nearly $4 billion in these R&D projects. Juanita Koilpillai received funding during this period to develop her cybersecurity product. This is the story of Juanita Koipillai, Mountain Wave, and CyberWolf.