Automated Cyber Defense for Critical Infrastructure: Lessons from DARPA’s AI Cyber Challenge
About This Session
Critical infrastructure is increasingly targeted by sophisticated cyber threats that can originate from anywhere around the world. To address this threat, DARPA launched the AI Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), a landmark competition designed to ignite the development of AI-driven tools capable of autonomously finding and fixing software vulnerabilities. This talk explores lessons learned from the challenge, its implications for securing code that critical infrastructure relies on, and what the competition reveals about the future of automated cyber defense.
Speaker
Andrew Carney
Program Manager - DARPA
Carney is program manager for the DARPA AI Cyber Challenge. He is also a program manager at ARPA-H where he leads programs and projects to improve health cybersecurity.
He was previously a principal researcher in HSBC’s Cybersecurity Science and Analytics group. Before that, he was a technical advisor and contractor at DARPA, supporting reverse engineering, program analysis, human-machine teaming, and automated program repair research. He has long been involved in competitive hacking (Capture the Flag, or CTF) as both a player and a competition organizer.
Carney has over 15 years of experience in software & hardware vulnerability research and technical education & training. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from The Johns Hopkins University.
He was previously a principal researcher in HSBC’s Cybersecurity Science and Analytics group. Before that, he was a technical advisor and contractor at DARPA, supporting reverse engineering, program analysis, human-machine teaming, and automated program repair research. He has long been involved in competitive hacking (Capture the Flag, or CTF) as both a player and a competition organizer.
Carney has over 15 years of experience in software & hardware vulnerability research and technical education & training. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from The Johns Hopkins University.