Intel and the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) have been selected to join the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s Hardening Development Toolchains Against Emergent Execution Engines (HARDEN) program.

The four-year joint effort will focus on creating tools based on cryptography and formal security theories to prevent vulnerabilities in integrated computing systems, according to Intel. DARPA will utilize Intel’s Cryptographic Capability Computing (C3) system, which is the first stateless memory safety mechanism that replaces metadata with cryptography.

The HARDEN program will create tools to prevent the exploitation of integrated computing systems by disrupting the patterns of robust exploits used by attackers. The C3 system replaces metadata with cryptography by encrypting individual pointers and data objects.

The HARDEN program will run for 48 months and is organized into three phases.

[Image courtesy: Intel]