On November 14th, 2011, Dawn Lim wrote for Wired on how a new DARPA program is building the relationship between hackers and the federal government. The program, called Cyber Fast Track, awards contracts to small-time hackers that can find holes in network defenses. Lim notes that seven contracts have already been awarded to small companies in just two months of operation. Moreover, the government awards these contracts in less than 7 days, a very quick turn-around time. The article goes on to say that Cyber Fast Track was designed as a dynamic method to find new network vulnerabilities that emerge every day.
The Cyber Fast Track research announcement stated that “The government needs agile cyber projects that are smaller in effort, have a potential for large payoff, and result in a rapid turnaround, creating a greater cost to the adversary . . . of particular interest are efforts with the potential to reduce attack surface areas, reverse current asymmetries, or that are strategic, rather than tactical in nature.”
The source article can be found here.
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