Raytheon has been awarded a contract to work on the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Plan X programme.
Under the terms of the $9.8m contract, the company will conduct R&D activities to enable the US Department of Defense to predictably and rapidly scale and execute cyber operations with accurate assessable results.
Raytheon intelligence, information and services cybersecurity and special missions vice-president Jack Harrington said: "When supporting our customers’ missions, we can help assess the results of launching missiles or any weapons in other domains; land, air, sea or space.
"Raytheon is working to provide the same mission confidence to the cyber domain through our work with DARPA’s Plan X."
Originally announced in 2011, the Plan X programme seeks to help US government agencies to plan, execute and assess cyber network operations.
The foundational cyberwarfare programme aims to develop platforms for the Department of Defense to plan for, conduct and assess cyberwarfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare.
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By GlobalDataSpecifically, the programme will focus on five technical areas to build a prototype system; system architecture, cyber battlespace analytics, mission construction, mission execution and intuitive interfaces, as reported earlier by Military Aerospace.
US national policymakers, not DARPA, are expected to determine how the cyber capabilities developed under the programme will be employed to serve the national security interests of the country.
