DARPA is taking a two-pronged approach: last August, an agency project named Cyber Insider Threat (CINDER) called for proposals for better systems to detect attackers who have already compromised a network.
Once it had successfully compromised a network, the destruction would begin.
"What's much more interesting is the second stage persistence tools". Organisations rarely get a look at these, he said, because once an attacker has compromised a network they usually take steps to erase any evidence of what they did, where they went and what software helped them do that.
It's not hard for the bad guys to set up fake Wi-Fi networks to snare the unsuspecting, or even compromise a legitimate network and leverage that to grab your information.
For example, an outside intruder has to compromise an enterprise network, and then attacks its connected industrial control systems via the enterprise network.
Then mother and son struck compromises that built a network of support around her and Roger in their home.
"Its tactic was to compromise a few computers inside a network" once the hacker got in, say, by delivering the malware through MEDoc.
When a node attempts to join/rejoin a network, a compromise of link quality and depth is used to decide the priority in the algorithm.
In two separate presentations scheduled for the Shmoocon hacking conference in Washington, D.C., next week, researchers will show how hackers can use printers to compromise a company's computer network.
The project that landed Moore in trouble, Critical.IO, uncovered some serious, widespread vulnerabilities, including one case where between 40 and 50 million network machines could have been compromised due to weaknesses in a network protocol, known as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).
