Acalvio’s Deception Technology Triumphs at Navy Cyber Challenge

Acalvio won first prize for excellence in areas such as usability, features, technical performance and assessors’ recommendations, demonstrating its overall strength and effectiveness in enhancing cyber defense capabilities.

The landscape of cyber warfare is fundamentally shifting. No longer is it enough to simply react to threats after they’ve breached defenses. The U.S. Navy recognizes this critical evolution, stating¹ it’s “increasingly evident that standard cybersecurity practices are not enough to fully protect Department of Navy networks from current threat vectors, and that we are now in a post-security environment.” This paradigm shift, where a breach is often assumed, emphasizes the urgent need for preemptive cybersecurity – a proactive approach that Gartner is actively promoting².

It’s within this context that the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific hosted its Cyber Resilient Systems (CRS) Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) challenge in mid-June. This rigorous competition aimed to identify cutting-edge solutions capable of enhancing cyber defense capabilities in this challenging new environment.

From 14 initial proposals, the government down-selected five leading commercial and non-traditional companies to compete in Charleston. Each team was rigorously evaluated on its ability to detect, delay, and deny a sophisticated “red team” from achieving their objectives. The ANTX challenge served as a vital, real-time testbed, meticulously assessing the impact and effectiveness of various cyber deception technologies in adversarial scenarios.

Acalvio’s advanced cyber deception strategy didn’t just detect threats; it demonstrably degraded attacker performance and denied their objectives. These results are a powerful validation of deception as a proactive, essential layer for defending high-value assets and actively countering advanced, persistent threats (APTs) targeting the Navy across both IT and operational technology (OT) environments.

Acalvio showcased the practical effectiveness of its deception technology in achieving the Navy’s core cyber resilience objectives: to detect, deny, and deter attackers. Our technical performance was outstanding, with:

• 100% True Positives: Every alert generated was a confirmed, malicious interaction, eliminating false alarms and streamlining security operations.
• 80% Denial of Attacker Objectives: This critical metric highlights our ability to actively thwart sophisticated attacks and prevent their desired outcomes.

Our detections successfully identified advanced attacker tactics throughout the kill chain, from initial enumeration to credential access, lateral movement, privilege escalation, and data exfiltration.

Acalvio’s success at the ANTX challenge is built on a foundation of unique technical differentiators and continuous innovation. Our strategic strengths include:

• Comprehensive Deception-as-Strategy: Our approach spans the entire spectrum, from slowing down and detecting attackers to actively disrupting and denying their progress.
• Multi-Strategy Support: The ability to deploy and manage multiple deception strategies concurrently creates a more dynamic and resilient defense.
• Auto-Triaged Incidents: We significantly reduce analyst workload by correlating events into single, high-fidelity alerts, dramatically optimizing SOC efficiency and effectiveness.
• Hyper-Realistic Deception Artifacts: Our decoys are designed to blend seamlessly and realistically with the environment, making them highly effective in luring and confusing attackers.
• State-of-the-Art Diversion Tactics: We employ unique methods to actively confuse and mislead adversaries, forcing them to waste time and reveal their intentions.

Acalvio’s decisive victory at the NIWC Pacific ANTX challenge underscores the critical role of advanced cyber deception in building truly resilient defense systems. In an era where “assume compromise” is the new standard, our proven ability to detect, delay, deny, and deter attackers offers the Department of Navy – and any organization facing sophisticated threats – a powerful new advantage. We are proud to deliver the preemptive cybersecurity solutions needed to stay ahead of the evolving adversarial landscape.