April 5, 2017 – Newport News, VA – Since Frank Byrum joined in 2014, as Spectrum’s Chief Scientist, he has been researching and developing the Mission Aware Framework (MAF) – a mission assurance and risk assessment methodology and software suite.  Built upon a robust mathematical foundation, the MAF enables practitioners to efficiently and comprehensively Model, Discover, Analyze and Visualize Cyber-Physical Systems to achieve operational reliability and resilience in the rapidly evolving, dynamic, hostile cyber-threat landscape.

At Christopher Newport University’s (CNU) Center for American Studies 6th annual Homeland Security Symposium & Expo held February 1-2, Frank moderated and presented during the panel entitled “Disaster Resilience in the Digital Age”.  His focus emphasized the cybersecurity vulnerabilities, scale, and challenges of Cyber-Physical Systems – those embedded systems controlled by computers such as industrial manufacturing plants and our critical infrastructure.

“There is a critical need to have a risk assessment methodology like the Mission Aware Framework to develop a robust resilience strategy,” he said, “given the emerging cyber landscape, increasing persistence and attack sophistication, the scale of the cyber threat and the potential for devastating impacts to humans, the environment, and business operations.”

Spectrum’s Mission Aware Framework is a key decision support tool enabling an holistic and comprehensive understanding of the potential impacts and threats, providing a measurable risk assessment methodology for any Cyber-Physical Systems environment.

Spectrum is a veteran and employee-owned business that serves the Department of Defense, federal and state agencies plus select commercial clients. Diversifying from a foundation of providing the National and DoD intelligence community with innovative, realistic and affordable solutions in technology, Spectrum offers full system support from assessment to design, development and implementation.  Our employee-owners take great pride in exceeding client expectations. To learn more, visit our corporate website at www.sptrm.com.