If Existing Cyber Vulns Magically Disappeared, What Next
Dr Stefanie Tompkins
DEF CON 32 Main Stage · Day 1 · Main Stage
Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, the Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (**DARPA**), delivered a thought-provoking keynote at DEF CON 32, challenging the cybersecurity community to envision a future beyond the persistent vulnerabilities that plague today's digital landscape. Her talk, titled "If Existing Cyber Vulns Magically Disappeared, What Next," wasn't a technical deep dive into a specific exploit, but rather a strategic call to action for disruptive innovation. Dr. Tompkins emphasized DARPA's mission to make "big bets" on high-risk, revolutionary technologies that deliver "5,000 times better" improvements or entirely new solution spaces, rather than incremental enhancements.
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This keynote from DARPA's Director, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, is a potent strategic challenge to the cybersecurity community. It skillfully leverages a hypothetical "post-vulnerability" world to compel researchers to move beyond incremental fixes and pursue foundational, disruptive innovations. While not a technical deep-dive, it provides a clear signal on DARPA's priorities for "5,000 times better" solutions, backed by the agency's storied history of fostering revolutionary technologies. It's a call to action for those capable of making "big bets" on truly resilient systems, directly from the…