UW-Madison awarded $6.1 million from Navy for computer security research

A group of UW-Madison computer science researchers has been awarded a $6.1 million grant to work on a new computer science research project studying container technology.

The Office of Naval Research, a division of the United States Department of the Navy, awarded the university with the money to do the research on containers, a program that helps software run smoothly when it is moved from one computing environment to another, according to a university release.

Somesh Jha, a UW-Madison computer sciences professor and research team leader said the money will be used to create technology for improved management, performance and security of container technology.

According to Jha, containers can build upon each other and end up getting “bloated” with elements not needed for a particular application to run.

“If we can create techniques to decrease container bloat, the potential benefit to society is huge in terms of software performance, security and trustworthiness,” Jha said in the release.

The University of Illinois, Oregon State University, the University of Toronto and GrammaTech will collaborate with UW-Madison on this project.

The research will be funded for five years.