How the audacious Pentagon agency that invented the Internet is now trying to save it

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the audacious Pentagon research agency that invented the Internet, is trying to figure out how to protect it. The agency’s conclusion: We’re doing cybersecurity all wrong. Today, most network protective systems are like fire alarms; they sound when there’s smoke, and then the firefighters arrive to extinguish the flames. But DARPA, dubbed the “Department of Mad Scientists,” envisions a massive, automated computer system that not only detects the smoke, but prevents the fire from happening in the first place -- or snuffs it out almost immediately. “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 -- those people who can do the job computers can’t,” said Michael Walker, a DARPA program manager. “And when we call in the cavalry, most of the time we’ve already lost.”

To build a fully automated, computer-driven system that would find bugs in software and patch them on its own, DARPA has invited teams from all over the country to compete in a major cyberbattle it calls the Grand Cyber Challenge, with a $2 million first prize. The goal is to level a playing field that today is wildly in favor of hackers, Walker said. If a computer system could be envisioned as being 1 million miles long, he said, hackers only have to find a single crack, while “the defense has to guard the entire wall.” Only a computer system is capable of the immense task of finding every crack and patching them before they can be exploited, he said.