Skipton-based Syphan Technologies has teamed up with Bradford University to develop inspection techniques to detect computer attacks.

Syphan, which has developed new high-speed technology to protect against cyber attacks, is providing financial and technical support to the research project at Bradford University's School of Informatics.

Dubbed project Sinbin, it will develop new inspection techniques to detect latest multi-staged stealth attacks. These are increasingly being used to get round standard security measures and access sensitive data and applications.

Syphan said the results of the work "will be of global significance in the fight against cyber crime".

The research will be led by Dr Irfan Awan and a team of post graduate students who have created a test lab to simulate threats.

Dr Awan said: "In recent years both network technology and security threats have become more sophisticated particularly as more organisations move to take advantage of the very high speed broadband connections that are now widely available.

"This means that current security systems can no longer be relied on to provide the level of protection needed to ensure that networks cannot be compromised.

"Our research is focused on developing new ways of dealing with these threats and preventing the sort of incidents of data leakage that are now seemingly everyday stories in the news.

"Without the help of businesses like Syphan we would not be able to carry out this critically important work."

Syphan has developed a security system, ITC220, which is capable of operating in the 10 gigabyte environment and much faster than conventional systems.

Syphan is lending the researcher team £140,000 worth of equipment to test their software at speeds of up to 40 gigabytes per second.

Syphan chief executive Pravin Mirchandani said: "Up until now network managers have had to balance their security needs with the usability of the system.

"With many new applications such as internet telephony and video streaming needing very high speed connections to function effectively this has often meant that security has had to be a secondary consideration.

"The ITC220 is designed to deliver the highest levels of security without compromising the performance of the network.

"The objectives of the Sinbin project are perfectly aligned with our own technology roadmap and we can only see mutual benefit arising from this tie up with Dr Awan's team."