Switzerland and the USA launch “A-VIPER” research project focusing on the automated identification of software vulnerabilities
Bern, 02.12.2025 — The Federal Office for Defence Procurement armasuisse and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) have launched the “A-VIPER” research project. It is based on the existing framework agreement between the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) and the US Department of Defense (DoD). The aim of the project is to further develop the automated identification, analysis and prioritisation of software vulnerabilities in security-critical systems.
The project focuses on the joint development of a software environment that includes analysis tools and technical procedures to identify and investigate vulnerabilities before assessing their level of criticality. Representing Switzerland, armasuisse Science and Technology will focus on methods for analysing binary code. The AFRL is developing source-code-based methods. Both parties are integrating their approaches, developing the analysis environment and researching technologies that automatically indicate when a vulnerability is identified, assign its priority and convert these into a prioritised operational picture. The developed technologies will be tested on real systems and evaluated for their operational relevance to military end-users.
Strengthening cyber security
Through the “Automated Vulnerability Identification Prioritization for Embedded Resources” (A-VIPER) project, the partner countries aim to strengthen cybersecurity. Its purpose is to generate new scientific insights that increase the quality of analyses in software security research and in the long term make security-critical systems more resilient to attacks in practice. The cooperation will further deepen the technological collaboration between Switzerland and the USA, and lay the foundation for future cyber-defence research. A-VIPER will run for five years until 2030.
The framework agreement
The Agreement for Research, Development, Test and Evaluation Projects (RDT&E) is a framework agreement between the US Department of Defence and the DDPS. It entered into force on 17 April 2019 and forms the basis for joint research, development, testing and evaluation projects in the defence sector.