IARPA Seeks Information on Cognitive Effects in Cyber Operations

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity has posted a request for information on SAM .gov regarding cognitive effects in cyber operations. Specifically, IARPA is looking into available approaches, emergent findings and metrics to characterize such effects, potentially serving as a foundation for a future government program or study. The RFI covered topics such as the influence of cyber operators’ individual and cultural attributes on cognitive outcomes as well as the potential impact of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Interested parties must submit responses by Oct. 4, Homeland Security Today reported Friday.

One objective IARPA aims to achieve is the deterrence of cyber attackers. One study into the psychological effect of framing on attackers found that those working with the knowledge that deceptive technology was present on a network made less progress. Another concluded that the availability of information affected the impact of framing on attacker behavior.

IARPA operates a related initiative called Integrated Cognitive-Neuroscience Architectures for Understanding Sensemaking, which focuses in part on attention, memory and decision-making cognitive biases. The program centers around modeling how humans make sense of geospatial information, which researchers aim to extrapolate to other forms of intelligence data. The agency said ICArUS research could lead to advanced automated analysis tools that work similarly to human sensemaking.