DARPA touts ‘formal methods’ for nipping cyber disasters in the bud
By Courtney Albon
Feb 21, 2025, 12:28 PM
Darren Cofer, a senior fellow at Collins Aerospace, demonstrates a cybersecurity tool developed as part of DARPA's High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems effort, or HACMS. (DARPA)
Officials at the Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency have begun nudging Defense Department managers to utilize idling DARPA cybersecurity tools meant to preempt hacks and accidents in critical programs.
A series of high-profile incidents in recent years has highlighted a kind of passivity among defense officials in the face of the damage caused, according to Kathleen Fisher, the director of DARPA’s Information Innovation Office. Believing that systems can’t stave off catastrophic cyber incidents caused by software vulnerabilities, the department often focuses instead on reactive fixes, she said.
But proactive tools for building more resilient software already exist in the Pentagon’s arsenal of countermeasures, she said at a demonstration day at the agency’s Arlington, VA headquarters earlier this month.
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/02/21/darpa-touts-formal-methods-for-nipping-cyber-disasters-in-the-bud/
