Deadline extended on project to determine vulnerability of military AI systems to EW and cyber attacks

ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers are extending the due date for a project to find ways of assessing the vulnerabilities of military artificial intelligence (AI) programs to enemy cyber attack.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., extended the proposal due date from 6 May 2025 to 3 June 2025 for the broad agency announcement (HR001125S0009) for the Securing Artificial Intelligence for Battlefield Effective Robustness (SABER) project.

AI security risks

Today there are no ways to assesses deployed military AI-enabled systems for their vulnerabilities to cyber attack, DARPA officials warn; the security risks of AI-enabled battlefield systems remain unknown.

To rectify this, the DARPA SABER project seeks to build an AI research group equipped with the necessary counter-AI techniques, tools, and technical competency to assess AI-enabled battlefield systems.

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AI technology has reached a level of maturity sufficient to integrate the technology into U.S. military systems. AI could give battlefield advantage by helping improve the speed, quality, and accuracy of decision-making while enabling machine autonomy and automation.

Yet AI has been shown a vulnerability to an adversary's taking control of its data input, which can lead to data poisoning, physically constrained adversarial patches for evasion, and model stealing attacks.

AI-enabled machine autonomy

The SABER research team will assess the potential vulnerabilities of AI-enabled autonomous ground and aerial systems that could be deployed within the next one to three years.

SABER wants contractors to develop physical, adversarial AI, cyber security, and electronic warfare (EW) techniques to perform these AI cyber vulnerability assessments. The SABER program manager is Lt. Col. Nathaniel Bastian.

Related: Navy approaches industry for electronic warfare (EW), RF surveillance, and artificial intelligence (AI)

Companies interested were asked to submit abstracts by 31 March 2025, and full proposals by 3 June 2025 to the DARPA BAA Tool online at https://baa.darpa.mil. Several contracts are expected, and companies are not required to submit abstracts to submit proposals.

Email questions or concerns to DARPA at [email protected]. More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/5e377ad0bb1c4208a56f2f9187386be6/view.