HACMS: Protecting Military Systems from Hackers

Today’s world is a network of interconnected, embedded computer systems with components ranging in size and complexity from large supervisory control and data acquisition systems that manage physical infrastructure such as electrical grids and dams, to smaller but still critical systems inside airplanes, satellites, medical devices, computer printers and routers, and handheld devices such as cell phones and radios. Researchers and hackers have shown that these kinds of networked embedded systems are vulnerable to remote attack, and such attacks can cause not just data loss or but significant physical, economic, and strategic damage. DARPA’s High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems (HACMS) program is creating technology for the construction of safe and secure cyber-physical systems. Taking a fundamentally different approach from the inadequate methods used today by the software community, the program has adopted a clean-slate, formal methods-bas