DARPA developing arsenal of cyber weapons

The Pentagon is increasing efforts to build an arsenal of cyber weapons for use against enemy targets by the U.S. military.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, held a symposium discussing the increasing threat to systems controlled by computers.The goal is to secure U.S. infrastructure and assure the military’s ability to use these systems in future conflicts. A recent DARPA assessment found that the U.S. is limited in dealing with fast-evolving threats from malicious software code.

DARPA played a role in creating Arpanet, a forerunner to the Internet.

The director of DARPA stated that malicious cyber attacks are a real threat to our physical systems including military systems. U.S. officials declined to comment on whether they can defend against attacks targeting things like transportation, banks and power grids.