Salvador Technologies of Rehovot, Israel, and U.S. partner Bastazo of Fayetteville, Arkansas, received a reported $2.2 million BIRD Cyber grant in 2023 to develop an AI-assisted platform for industrial control-system (ICS) vulnerability management, monitoring and rapid recovery. The award covers a joint research-and-development project; the available announcements do not establish that the resulting system is currently deployed or commercially available.
What the BIRD grant is funding
Salvador Technologies announced the award on September 27, 2023, describing a $2.2 million cybersecurity project funded through the Israel–United States Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. BIRD’s approved-project list independently names Salvador Technologies and Bastazo and describes the work as ICS vulnerability management, monitoring and rapid recovery from cyberattacks.
Industrial control systems operate physical processes in sectors such as manufacturing, energy, water and transportation. A ransomware incident in an ICS environment can affect availability and safety as well as data, so the proposed project combines prevention-oriented visibility with recovery capabilities rather than treating backup and restoration as an afterthought.
What the planned system is intended to do
Find weaknesses in OT and ICS networks
The companies said the platform would use AI-driven automation to identify vulnerabilities and help operators see how weaknesses in operational-technology (OT) networks could permit ransomware or other attacks to penetrate critical systems.
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Use threat simulation and detection
According to Salvador’s announcement, Bastazo would contribute threat-simulation and detection capabilities. Those functions are intended to model or identify attack paths and provide monitoring information for security operations teams. The announcement describes planned capabilities, not independently measured detection rates.
Recover systems rapidly after an attack
Salvador Technologies’ contribution is described as a rapid-recovery framework, including recovery hardware in the university account of the project. The intended outcome is to restore affected ICS operations quickly after an incident while preserving the integrity of critical configurations.
Bastazo co-founder Philip Huff said in the announcement: “The product that we are co-developing will help companies better see the weaknesses in their ICS and OT networks that allow ransomware to penetrate into their critical networks and recover rapidly from inevitable attacks.”
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What “XCS” means in coverage of the project
University of Arkansas at Little Rock reporting refers to the project as Extracted Configuration Security (XCS). That coverage describes XCS as using AI automation together with rapid-recovery hardware to protect ICS environments and identifies Bastazo as a startup with ties to the University of Arkansas System. It also quotes Huff, who is an assistant professor of cybersecurity at UA Little Rock and a Bastazo co-founder: “Leveraging large language models to automate decisions in cybersecurity operations is not just a leap for us, but a giant step for the entire Operational Technology (OT) security sector.”
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallXCS is therefore a name used for the joint development effort in university reporting. The cited sources do not show that XCS became a generally available commercial product.
How the $2.2 million figure fits BIRD’s broader program
BIRD’s first BIRD Cyber solicitation produced a four-project cohort. The program announcement said the projects were reviewed with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, Israel National Cyber Directorate and the BIRD Foundation Board. It estimated approximately $10 million in combined value for all four projects, including private-sector funding.
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| Figure | What it covers | Source context |
|---|---|---|
| $2.2 million | Announced grant for the Salvador Technologies–Bastazo project | Salvador Technologies announcement, 2023 |
| Approximately $10 million | Combined value of all four projects, including private-sector funding | BIRD announcement, August 2023 |
| $2.71 million | Government funding recorded for the 2022–2023 BIRD Cyber cohort | BIRD Foundation Annual Report 2023 |
| Four approved; two signed | Number of projects and signed projects in the 2022–2023 cohort | BIRD Foundation Annual Report 2023 |
These figures have different scopes. The $2.2 million amount is specific to the Salvador–Bastazo project as announced; the other amounts describe the wider BIRD Cyber group and should not be read as additional funding for this one project.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Who the partners are
Salvador Technologies
Salvador Technologies is the Israeli partner, based in Rehovot. Its announced role centers on rapid recovery for critical systems, including the recovery framework and hardware described for the project.
Bastazo
Bastazo is the U.S. partner, based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. University reporting connects the startup with the University of Arkansas System and identifies Huff as both a company co-founder and a UA Little Rock cybersecurity faculty member. The company’s announced technical role includes threat simulation, detection and AI-oriented automation.
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What is—and is not—established about results
The announcements establish that BIRD approved and funded a joint development effort and outline its intended technical components. They do not provide project-specific evidence of:
- production deployments or named customers;
- the number or severity of vulnerabilities identified;
- measured recovery times;
- independent performance testing; or
- current commercial availability, pricing or purchasing instructions.
Consequently, the award should be understood as support for developing an enterprise ICS-security capability, not as proof that a finished product has delivered a particular security or recovery outcome.
Why the award matters for industrial cybersecurity
The project addresses a persistent challenge in OT security: operators need to understand exploitable configurations without disrupting systems that may run continuously, and they need a dependable way to restore operations when prevention fails. Combining configuration-focused vulnerability management, continuous monitoring, attack simulation and recovery could address different stages of that problem in one workflow.
That potential is the rationale for the collaboration, not a verified result. Organizations evaluating the technology would still need evidence on supported control-system platforms, deployment architecture, safety and change-management controls, recovery objectives, independent validation and operational references.
Current status
The cited 2023 company, BIRD and university materials describe the award and planned development. They do not resolve whether XCS or another product from the project is now deployed, sold or maintained commercially. Readers should check for a later announcement directly from BIRD, Salvador Technologies or Bastazo before treating the project as an available procurement option.
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