The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is partnering with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Department of National Defence of Canada will work together on cybersecurity.
The idea is to jointly research, develop, test and evaluate technologies for AI, cybersecurity, resilient systems and information technologies in the defense sector, all based on real-world challenges.
“Our international research collaborations with the United States and Canada are among our most vital and enduring partnerships,” said Dr. Nick Joad, director of science and technology at the Department of Defense.
“This agreement solidifies our collective commitments to advancing emerging cybersecurity technologies such as artificial intelligence “to strengthen the defense and security of our nations.”
One joint research project already underway is the Cyber Agents for Security Testing and Learning Environments (CASTLE) program, which trains AI to autonomously defend networks against advanced persistent cyber threats.
Meanwhile, DARPA said researchers are working on interoperable defensive cyber capabilities, creating testbeds that simulate network architecture. The goal is to create AI-based defensive software to assess, categorize and generate a response to cyber threats more quickly.
Other areas of research and development underway include human-AI teamwork, including military medical triage, as well as defining and creating reliable AI systems.
Countries will also work to protect, detect attacks and monitor networks, as well as produce new tools and policies to accelerate software certification.
“We know that we are stronger together than apart. The trilateral collaboration is a major step forward in advancing our understanding in our identified priority research and development areas,” said DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins.
“Working with our international partners in science and technology helps us all leverage each other’s individual strengths to develop a much greater collective capacity.”
The Ministry of Defence has been working to improve operational security and resilience since 2022, when it introduced a new “secure by design” strategy which it says should make it resilient to “all known cybersecurity vulnerabilities” and attack methods by 2030.
However, in September 2023, thousands of pages of sensitive information were leaked by the LockBit ransomware gang, after the hacking of contractor Zaun, a fencing systems manufacturer based in the West Midlands.
The hack is believed to have taken place in August, with the stolen data including sales records and details of equipment used at GCHQ’s Bude satellite ground station and the network’s monitoring site, RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire.
In January this year, the Ministry of Defence was ranked among the most vulnerable IT systems in Whitehall, with 11 systems “red-rated”, defined as being exposed to critical levels of risk. It has since stepped up its bug-hunting programme, with a expanded collaboration with HackerOne.
