Christian Davenport writes that the finalists will compete under the $2 million Grand Cyber Challenge to build a system that could automatically find vulnerabilities and patch them, enabling IT security teams to keep pace with potential threats.
“The computer security industry is basically a bunch of automated detectors set up to let us know when it’s time to call the cavalry â those people who can do the job computers can’t,” said Michael Walker, a program manager at DARPA.
“And when we call in the cavalry, most of the time we’ve already lost.”
Among the finalists are representatives of Raytheon, which the report said has put $3.5 billion into its cyber business as it seeks to expand its cyber defense services from weapons systems to commercial applications.
The complete list of finalists is found on the DARPA website.