Vermont Business Magazine Norwich University Applied Research Institutes’ (NUARI) Distributed Environment for Critical Infrastructure Decision-making Exercises – Financial Sector (DECIDE-FS) risk resiliency response software has been nominated by FedScoop 50 as one of the best and brightest technologies implemented this year that make the federal government more efficient and effective. Online voting to select the top 50 awardees in the IT community will close September 16 and winners will be announced October 4. The FedScoop 50 Awards celebrate those people and products that make a positive impact in the government community and in public service. To vote for NUARI’s DECIDE-FS technology innovation, CLICK HERE.
FedScoop is the leading government tech media company in Washington, DC, and gathers top leaders from The White House, federal agencies, academia and the tech industry to discuss how technology can improve government, exchange best practices and identify ways to achieve common goals.
Supported by the US Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology (DHS S&T) and the US Department of the Treasury and developed by NUARI, DECIDE-FS exercise software has been used over the past three years to support the banking and finance critical infrastructure sector and its Quantum Dawn exercises. The DECIDE-FS software allows business leaders to rapidly test and identify flaws in their incident response plan when faced with a threat. NUARI built the resiliency assessment platform, DECIDE-FS, under a $9.9 million contract awarded in August 2013 by the DHS S&T Directorate.
The only system of its kind, DECIDE-FS was initially designed to test US financial sector cyber risk resiliency and has been adapted for use in other critical infrastructure arenas, such as electrical grids and health care. The software engages an organization by using a simulation that participants experience interactively with their peers, competitors and supply chains to simulate systemic risk. “DECIDE-FS is the only human-in-the-loop distributed resiliency assessment platform that allows industries to test their response plans in a safe and confidential environment for all staff to practice decision-making,” said NUARI President Phil Susmann.
US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), a member of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee and of its Defense Subcommittee, sponsored legislation that chartered NUARI in 2002 and announced the DECIDE-FS contract at Norwich’s Northfield campus in 2013. Through the simulation, individuals and organizations learn to operate under stressful conditions—similar to how simulators are employed to condition the response of pilots and mariners to emergencies—as well as develop more persistent tactics for countering the unknown. DECIDE-FS grew in part out of war game simulations. Such games have been used for decades by military organizations to validate strategies and tactics and refine response plans.
NUARI has collaborated with the US Department of Homeland Security for nearly a decade, preparing individuals and institutions to respond to catastrophic network failures, natural disasters, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks and other events that can impact market activity, communications, and essential services affecting critical infrastructures. DECIDE-FS, created at NUARI, is a massive, multi-participant simulation that effectively immerses industry decision makers, securities traders, IT and business continuity managers and others into complex, simulated scenarios focused on the effects of cyber incidents and other business disruptions.