Creative Speculation

Last edited Wed Nov 19, 2014, 09:16 PM - Edit history (2)

Cyber Grand Challenge Announces 1st Group of Teams, Final Event at DEF CON

Computer security experts from academia, industry and the larger security community have organized themselves into more than 30 teams to compete in DARPA’s Cyber Grand Challenge—a first-of-its-kind tournament designed to speed the development of automated security systems able to defend against cyberattacks as fast as they are launched. DARPA also announced today that it has reached an agreement to hold the 2016 Cyber Grand Challenge final competition in conjunction with DEF CON, one of the largest computer security conferences in the world.

DARPA’s Cyber Grand Challenge takes aim at an increasingly serious problem: the inadequacy of current network security systems, which require expert programmers to identify and repair system weaknesses—typically after attackers have taken advantage of those weaknesses to steal data or disrupt processes. Such disruptions pose greater risks than ever as more and more devices, including vehicles and homes, get networked in what has become known as “the Internet of things.”

“Today’s security methods involve experts working with computerized systems to identify attacks, craft corrective patches and signatures and distribute those correctives to users everywhere—a process that can take months from the time an attack is first launched,” said Mike Walker, DARPA program manager. “The only effective approach to defending against today’s ever-increasing volume and diversity of attacks is to shift to fully automated systems capable of discovering and neutralizing attacks instantly.”

http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/06/03.aspx

Unlike the previous DARPA project I was not directly involved with this project; but it resembles the spectral challenge, because I only documented the measurable results. In the spectrum challenge, Chinese satellites were discovered disrupting more types of communications than radios. Now intelligence agencies of many nations will participate on computers involved in this network of illegal eavesdroppers, although these volunteers do not realize their computers are disabling enemies who disrupt inernational computer activity. Finally, this activity resembles the spectral challenge initiated, on an international basis by Jeffersons Ghost at 7:13 on 11/19/14.