DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge AI Will Prevail

Next month Las Vegas will host the Final Event of the DARPA Cyber grand Challenge as an all-computer cyber-defence Capture the Flag tournament. From an initial field of over 100 applicant seven teams will compete for the 3.5 million prize pool. As we reported at the time, DARPA announced this contest in October 2013. "to vastly improve the speed and effectiveness of IT security against escalating cyber threats." These AI systems would be designed to compete in CTF (Capture the Flag) contests, speed-driven bug hunting tournaments where experts reverse-engineer software, probe its weaknesses, search for deeply hidden flaws and create securely patched replacements.