ABSTRACT
In 2016, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency hosted the Cyber Grand Challenge, a competition which invited participating finalist teams to develop automated cyber defense systems that can self-discover, prove, and correct software vulnerabilities at real time – without human intervention. Many vendors are touting network automation programs with existing security information and event management tools as cyber autonomy. The dilemma between the need to patch system vulnerabilities and the need to maintain business or operational continuity also places pressure on software migration processes and time. Software migration (or modernization) is the current practice of modernizing software to a newer version. In contrast to the rate of new apps developed, the rate of discovery of vulnerabilities are lagging behind significantly. This builds a strong case for automation, especially because the software vulnerability identification and remediation processes can be done at rate faster than production.
