Raytheon wins DARPA “Plan X’ contract to develop new approach to cyber missions

Raytheon was awarded a $9.8 million contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its Plan X program, which seeks to help U.S. government agencies plan, execute and assess cyber network operations.

Raytheon’s research and development is focused on enabling the Department of Defense (DoD) to predictably and rapidly scale and execute cyber operations with accurate assessable results.

“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,” said Jack Harrington, vice president of cybersecurity and special missions within Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “Raytheon is working to provide the same mission confidence to the cyber domain through our work with DARPA’s Plan X.”

Plan X, first announced in 2011, is DARPA’s foundational cyber-warfare program to develop platforms for the DoD to plan for, conduct and assess cyber-warfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare.

“Plan X is a foundational cyberwarfare program to develop platforms for the Department of Defense to plan for, conduct, and assess cyberwarfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare,” explains DARPA on its own Web site. “Towards this end the program will bridge cyber communities of interest from academe, to the defense industrial base, to the commercial tech industry, to user-experience experts.”

“Plan X will not develop cyber offensive technologies or effects,” DARPA continues. “National policymakers, not DARPA, will determine how the cyber capabilities developed under Plan X will be employed to serve the national security interests of the United States.”