Cyber Panel
The Cyber Panel Program was developed to create capabilities to help defend mission-critical information systems by monitoring them for signs of cyber attack, and allowing operators to manage the operation of system security and survivability features to avert or counter developing attack situations. Intrusion assessment technologies were developed to detect security threats through correlation and analysis of observed/reported activities. Autonomic response capabilities were developed to react in milliseconds to block or withstand many classes of known and unknown attacks. Other items to be developed were monitoring and response components that would allow warfighters to observe the performance, health and threat state of mission critical information systems, project the likely impact of reported cyber attacks on system operation, assess possible defensive actions, and carry them out. The Cyber Panel program's goal was to help reduce the vulnerability of military systems to strategic cyber attacks by creating technologies that enable human-directed command and control over cyber resources, operationally relevant cyber situational understanding, mission impact assessment, and defensive response evaluation and execution. The most promising of these technologies were tested in operationally relevant experiments with U.S. warfighters in DARPA's Partners in Experimentation program, which was also budgeted in this project.
Program Accomplishments:
- Investigated methods for augmenting passive intrusion detection sensors with capabilities to actively probe for additional attack information.
- Explored techniques for improving the effectiveness of auto-response defenses with limited intelligence about attack models.
- Experimented to determine the usability of general-purpose anomaly detection algorithms to monitor a large, complex military software system.
- Combined selected Cyber Panel technologies into an integrated demonstration prototype incorporating cyber attack detection, correlation, assessment, and response capabilities.
