Attention Hackers: Software Will Protect Itself

For all the bits and bytes involved, cyber­security is a human endeavor. To protect our networks and email and banking apps, we need flesh-and-blood programmers. The trouble is, humans can’t possibly find and patch every single hole—or even find them fast enough. So online services continue to get hacked. But last summer, Darpa, the research arm of the US Department of Defense, ran the first hacking contest open only to security bots (submitted by their human handlers) that can patch holes on their own. Turns out, the bots can find simple bugs faster than human engineers—and in some cases they can pinpoint the most complex of security holes, bugs that shape-shift every second. The contest included one of these tranformers, and a bot built by researchers in Southern California managed to both find and patch it. That means bots will be able to fix security holes with a speed that was never before possible. And the security industry is now putting its weight behind the idea. This will eventually make online services safer. And your data will be safer too.