DARPA’s Fight on the Internet Begins

One of a number of groups or people attributed with the creation of the internet are now intent on finding ways to protect from cyber attacks. DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – have announced their desire to create what they are labeling a National Cyber Range.

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Pretty much a firing range for nerds! The goal of the NCR is to provide a virtual world where those who will be defending against cyber attacks in the future can train, learn, and build their skills in doing so. In the wake of allegations that countries like Russia and China have been making cyber attacks on countries like America, this is no wacky mind control experiment; this is the future. The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the National Cyber Range was published on May 5, in an attempt to sway Congress to allocate money to DARPA for just this project. The 47-page briefing outlines everything from top to bottom, and how DARPA hopes that their project will work, and subsequently help fight.

The NCR must be capable of taking a physical computer and rapidly creating a functionally equivalent, logical instance of that machine that can be replicated repeatedly ... Given a never-before-seen physical computing device [the Range must be able to] create logical instantiations of the physical native machine that accurately replicates, not only the software on the machine, but hardware to the interrupt level, chipset, and peripheral cards and devices.

Another intriguing idea is one that definitely throws in to the air a whole bunch of metaphysical and philosophical questions. “The NCR must replicate realistic human behavior on nodes.” In other words, the NCR will be filled with simulated human beings to play the role of mythical sysadmins, users, etc. In addition;

Replicant behavior will change as the network environment changes, as the replicated “outside environment” (i.e. DoD DefCon, InfoCon, execution of war plans, etc) changes, and as network activity changes (detected attacks, degradation of services, etc).

These automated replicants will be responsible for controlling all physical interaction with computer peripherals like mice and keyboards, as well as driving all common applications. But all of that is just the background for what the NCR is all about. “The NCR must provide, on demand, a dedicated, sophisticated OpFor to execute and respond to attacks or defenses as required.” These are not going to be just your average nerd with some latent hacking or cracking ability; these are hardcore nerds with some real talent.

Capabilities include sophisticated cyber activity, from defending national assets, to computer network attack ... Provide OpFor with an interface for individuals and teams to replicate cyber adversaries outside an enclave ... Provide secure planning and operations space within the facility to support supplemental OpFor provided by the Test Director [and] Establish a defensive tools library for use on the range.

It is going to be really interesting to watch the development of this, and one day I’m looking forward to one of those Discovery channel videos giving us an inside look at the NCR. www.theregister.co.uk Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.