http://www.eweek.com/security/darpa-contest-aims-to-create-self-defending-networks.html By Robert Lemos eWEEK.com 2014-06-03 Thirty teams will participate in the Cyber Grand Challenge, aiming to make networks smart enough to detect and repair vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. Aiming to make computer networks and systems self-defending, more than 30 teams will compete in the U.S. government’s first-ever Cyber Grand Challenge, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency announced on June 3. The contest will challenge teams to create systems that can detect vulnerabilities in a network and fix them before attackers can exploit the flaws to penetrate the network and their underlying data stores. Defenders normally need to find flaws, create patches and deploy those software updates to harden their networks against attack. Yet, the process takes time. While more than 80 percent of attacks compromise systems in days, less than 20 percent of incidents are detected by defenders in the same amount of time, according to the latest Data Breach Investigations Report released by communications services firm Verizon. The Cyber Grand Challenge aims to find a solution to that fundamental imbalance between attackers and defenders, Mike Walker, DARPA program manager, said in a statement announcing the contest. […]