AI tool ‘Argo’ helped harden Viasat after 2022 hack

Atalanta released an AI-assisted product called Argo and worked with Viasat to test and harden the satellite communications network that was targeted in a 2022 Russian cyberattack which disabled thousands of satellite modems across Ukraine and parts of Europe.

Argo uses what the company calls ‘software understanding’ — a mix of mathematical analysis and artificial intelligence — to scan code, system configurations and network connections for potential vulnerabilities and to produce evidence that protections have been strengthened.

Viasat ran Argo over the past year to identify weak points in its system and to generate mathematical proofs showing where defenses were improved.

Anjana Rajan, Atalanta’s chief executive and co-founder, said the tools and techniques of yesterday do not scale and added that ‘software understanding’ will be needed for anyone building a system of consequence for the United States.

Nick Saunders, Viasat’s chief of cyber strategy, described the work as producing ‘the math that backs up that claim’ about improved resilience.

Atalanta’s technology has also been applied to the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, a program to design autonomous nuclear reactors. Greg Shannon, chief cybersecurity scientist at Idaho National Laboratory, expects tools like Argo to become part of standard development toolkits within a decade or two and noted long-term government investment in formal methods.

Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said at a recent DARPA software conference that he wants the mathematical approaches used by companies like Atalanta to “become the DoD’s gold standard.”

Security officials point to the 2022 disruption of Viasat modems and to recent federal warnings about Iranian-linked hackers targeting water and wastewater systems as reasons agencies and companies are increasing use of stronger testing and verification tools.