WASHINGTON — The cybersecurity firm Xage Security won a $17 million contract to guard the Space Force’s Space Systems Command networks for the subsequent five years.
Based in Palo Alto, California, Xage focuses on so-called “zero trust” software used to thwart network intrusions.
The contract, announced Sept. 27, is for the protection of data networks, satellite ground stations, modems and other Space Force assets.
Geoffrey Mattson, CEO of Xage Security, said the contract also extends to “hybrid satellite architectures” of government-owned and business systems.
Under the zero-trust approach — which assumes that individuals or devices attempting to access a network cannot mechanically be trusted — users are verified each time they request access.
The corporate’s technology is utilized by energy firms and operators of critical infrastructure.
Mattson described Xage’s system as a “mesh cybersecurity platform” that secures data exchanges across multi-layered networks, including interactions between business and DoD assets.
“You’ve got to prove who you’re to access applications,” he said. The mesh platform also prevents the spread of cyberattacks by fencing off certain applications that will not be presupposed to interact with others within the network.
The Space Systems Command, Mattson said, “has strongly embraced the strategy of zero trust, which creates little or no room for attackers to either access the system or to maneuver inside the network.”
Previous Air Force contracts
Mattson said Xage Security has been working with the military for several years. The corporate in 2020 won a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory to review options for “end-to-end data protection across military and civilian assets to support command and control for the U.S. Space Force.”
That contract followed a 2019 Small Business Innovation Research Phase 1 award from the Air Force’s AFWERX program to reveal cybersecurity solutions for Air Force systems.