IARPA to Develop Offensive Cyber Code Identification Tech Under SoURCE CODE Program

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is seeking new technologies to help forensic experts identify the source of cyberattacks using coding styles in source code and binary executables.

Under the “Securing Our Underlying Resources in Cyber Environments” program, IARPA will explore binary executables and source code files to spot similarities, helping experts identify hackers’ origins, identities and affiliations. The SoURCE CODE program will have two phases – the first for the development of new methods to identify cyberthreat actors and the second for the deployment of the methods across the source code forensics and binary forensics domains.

The program is expected to last 30 months. The technologies to come out of the program could play a critical role in improving the cybersecurity posture of the Intelligence Community and the commercial threat intelligence sector, IARPA said.

The agency’s effort is one of several programs across the U.S. government designed to improve cyber posture.

Earlier in November, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced a new pilot program to identify how cybersecurity shared services would help critical infrastructure operators. Under the pilot, CISA would extend its Protective Domain Name System Resolver to critical infrastructure entities to prevent unwanted connections to malicious domains.