# The Path To Autonomous Cyber Defense

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.10788 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10788/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 24 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.5602/) (2013)
- [CybORG: A Gym for the Development of Autonomous Cyber Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09118/) (2021)
- [Finding Effective Security Strategies through Reinforcement Learning and Self-Play](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.08120/) (2020)
- [Network Environment Design for Autonomous Cyberdefense](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07583/) (2021)
- [Generalization to New Actions in Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01928/) (2020)
- [Automated Cyber Defence: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04926/) (2023)
- [NASimEmu: Network Attack Simulator & Emulator for Training Agents Generalizing to Novel Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17246/) (2023)
- [Incorporating Deception into CyberBattleSim for Autonomous Defense](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.13980/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Towards Production-Worthy Simulation for Autonomous Cyber Operations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19278/) (2025)
- [FATHOMS-RAG: A Framework for the Assessment of Thinking and Observation in Multimodal Systems that use Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08945/) (2025)
- [SysEvolve: An AI-native, safe, autonomous adversarial attack-defense co-evolutionary system](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.15012/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Defenders are overwhelmed by the number and scale of attacks against their networks.This problem will only be exacerbated as attackers leverage artificial intelligence to automate their workflows. We propose a path to autonomous cyber agents able to augment defenders by automating critical steps in the cyber defense life cycle.