A strong, lethal military demands cutting-edge and resilient software to power every weapon and support system our U.S. Warfighters depend on. However, the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) reliance on aging IT infrastructure, using security policies developed over the last 30 years, creates inherent vulnerabilities in its systems, from legacy architectures to advanced weapons.
Meanwhile, threat actors are actively exploiting these vulnerabilities, targeting critical infrastructure, stealing sensitive military code, and reengineering sensitive systems to compromise national security.
In response, DARPA has been developing powerful tools leveraging formal methods—a mathematically rigorous approach to software development that helps eliminate exploitable vulnerabilities before software is deployed. Working closely with DARPA, the U.S. Air Force will incorporate this rigorous approach into its MQ-9 Reaper program.