Inside the Leidos Cyber Accelerator: Innovation Sandbox to Mission Superiority
Cyber adversaries are no longer passive – they are doubling down on AI to increase the scale and sophistication of attacks, move faster, smarter, and with greater precision. At Leidos we see this reality clearly: an AI-enabled adversary demands an AI-enabled offense and defense. That’s why our Cyber Accelerator is relentlessly innovating to disrupt attacks, stress-test defenses, and deploy smarter tools and techniques that stay a step ahead of the threat landscape.
Recently we sat down with Bobby Scharmann, director of the Leidos Cyber Accelerator, to talk about how his team is delivering mission-ready solutions while shaping the future of cybersecurity to prepare for whatever comes next.
Q: What exactly is a Cyber Accelerator, and what does it do?
The Leidos Cyber Accelerator is our fast lane for cyber innovation. We’re the central hub for cyber-related innovation across the business.
The Cyber Accelerator team is multidisciplinary, so we cover everything from full-spectrum cyber operations such as offensive, defensive, and cyber-physical systems along with emerging areas like agentic AI and quantum technologies. Having access into every part of the business and a multi-disciplinary team helps us identify common capability needs and deliver timely and relevant capability to support the delivery of mission-focused, resilient systems that keep pace with the rapid evolution of today’s cyber terrain.
What we do is bridge the gap between emerging technologies and real-world applications. The team starts with questions like:
- What does this technology do?
- How can it be applied to our customer’s mission?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Then we combine academic research, customer feedback, internal research and development (R&D), and our expertise to develop novel mission-focused capabilities. For example, many of these capabilities will integrate into repeatable, high-value offerings for the enterprise or even onto high-priority programs such as DARPA’s Intelligent Generation of Tools for Security (INGOTS).
Q. What areas of research is the Cyber Accelerator currently working in to prepare for the next cyber trend?
We’re investing in research that can transform emerging concepts into mission-ready capabilities that our customers can trust with emphasis on addressing not only today’s threats but anticipating what’s next. That means building:
- AI-driven decision systems that accelerate threat detection, response, and operational decision-making to outpace adversaries.
- Adaptive and resilient architectures that withstand and recover from attacks, even in contested environments.
- Agentic AI solutions for cyber operations, enabling secure, autonomous agents across enterprise and tactical networks.
- Embedded and operational technology capabilities and frameworks to protect critical infrastructure and mission platforms.
- AI and Agentic AI security guidance, capabilities, and platforms to ensure AI and autonomous agents operate securely and resiliently under adversarial pressure.
- Post-Quantum Security and crypto-agile solutions to ensure sensitive data remains secure well into the future.
- Quantum technologies through advancing quantum sensing, communications, networking, and photonic systems to deliver breakthroughs in secure communications and situational awareness while exploring quantum-enabled cyber offense and defense.
Our goal is to deliver smarter, more resilient systems that help our customers act with speed and confidence, now and in the future.
Q: As the director of the Leidos Cyber Accelerator, what are your top priorities and how do they align with the company’s strategy?
My top priority is building capabilities that deliver real-world impact at mission speed. That means moving Beyond Compliance and driving towards secure and resilient outcomes in all we deliver and moving beyond minimum requirements standards and checklists. We want to deliver innovation that’s practical, deployable, and trusted – from hardening the foundation of our infrastructure, to bringing autonomy and AI into cyber operations decision-making, to securing operational technologies at the edge.
For me, it’s about staying ahead of the threat curve while helping Leidos and its customers move faster and with more confidence. We align tightly with the company’s strategy by turning cutting-edge research into differentiated capabilities that scale across the enterprise and mission space. Ultimately, I want the Cyber Accelerator to be known as the team that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible and keeps Leidos at the forefront of the intersection of cyber AI and quantum technologies.
My philosophy is to embrace both the opportunities and risks of emerging technology because real leaps happen when you are willing to innovate at the seams where disciplines converge.
Bobby Scharmann
Leidos Cyber Accelerator Director
Q: What unique perspective do you bring to the role?
I bring nearly 20 years of experience blending entrepreneurial leadership, advanced cyber expertise, and intelligence community experience. My technical background spans from reverse engineering and foreign material exploitation to advanced modeling and simulation, and AI. That mix has given me a distinct and unique understanding of mission needs across a wide range of customers and challenges.
I see compliance as a starting point, not an end state. My philosophy is to embrace both the opportunities and risks of emerging technology because real leaps happen when you are willing to innovate at the seams where disciplines converge. I emphasize resiliency over simply checking boxes, and I believe in bringing together diverse, cross-disciplinary talent to challenge assumptions. That mindset is what drives breakthrough innovations that keep us ahead of the curve.
Q: How do you see Leidos positioning itself within the industry utilizing the Cyber Accelerator?
Leidos is cementing its role as a leading authority in cyber by delivering mission-ready solutions and openly sharing innovations that strengthen the broader security community. It’s easy to point out the flaws and vulnerabilities so we are focused on building solutions that help our customers and partners mitigate those risks and stay ahead of the curve.
For example, we discovered that agents using Model Context Protocol tools can be coerced into performing malicious attacks. This led to us creating the MCPSafetyScanner, powered by Agno, which uses agents to perform safety auditing for MCP servers and helps them avoid potentially damaging attacks on their AI systems.
We also released our Firewall Attack Detections and Extractions (FADE) in response to Executive Orders focused on strengthening our nation’s cybersecurity. This dataset simulates 10 million attacks - think anything from shopping online to sending an email or posting on social media, giving researchers and defenders the ability to understand malicious patterns and harden their systems.
The key is that these breakthroughs aren’t theoretical – they started as R&D work here in the Accelerator and are now delivering real-world solutions for our customers and partners. That’s how we differentiate ourselves by quickly moving from concept to impact and sharing what we learn to raise the bar for industry.
Q: With technology evolving so quickly, how will Leidos stay ahead of evolving threats?
I believe real foundational leaps happen where we innovate at the seams - where proven disciplines meet emerging technologies. Think of Zero Trust principles merging with AI to drive new levels of security and resiliency. That’s where we focus our investments: at the intersection of what’s trusted today and what’s possible tomorrow.
We don’t just track new technologies; we experiment with them early, build an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, and prepare our workforce to harness them for their missions. This allows us to anticipate threats before they materialize and to turn breakthrough ideas into deployable, mission-ready capabilities. This often occurs before the need becomes urgent or is even known.
Leidos leads the future by pairing a culture of innovation and readiness with deep technical expertise – so when change comes, we’re already out in front.
