CAMBRIDGE, MA, Apr 6, 2026 – BBN Technologies has released Maude-HCS, an open-source toolkit for modeling and testing covert communication networks used in cyber defense. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under its PWND2 program, Maude-HCS is available on GitHub and supports pre-deployment performance analysis of covert network designs.
“Maude-HCS provides users a rigorous yet practical way to validate performance-privacy guarantees of hidden communication designs before they ever touch the wire,” said Dr. Joud Khoury, principal investigator at RTX BBN Technologies. “This capability has the potential to fundamentally change how the national security community builds and validates covert communication channels.”
Why Covert Communication Networks Matter
Covert communication networks embed messages within standard network traffic, so the communication does not stand out from routine activity. These methods are used in journalism and defense contexts where monitored or restricted networks limit conventional communication channels. Detection of such channels can expose participants and disrupt operations, making performance and detectability key evaluation parameters during development.
How Maude-HCS Solves the Problem
- Provides guarantee on performance, scalability and privacy: Predicts latency, data rate, and time to detection, with reported error rates of 1% to 9% relative to an experimental deployment.
- Accelerates validation: automates analysis workflows that require iterative testing, reducing processing time compared with manual methods.
- Operates on standard computing hardware: exhibits log-linear scaling with model size, including network message count, and is implemented on a single eight-core server.
- Enables open‑source collaboration: used by universities, industry partners, and government labs to reproduce results and extend the toolkit, reducing development cycles.
Maude-HCS provides pre-deployment performance analysis for cyber and networked systems and is used in defense and infrastructure-related contexts.
Source: RTX
About RTX BBN Technologies
RTX BBN Technologies, formerly Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), is a R&D company based in Cambridge, MA, and a subsidiary of RTX Corporation. Founded in 1948, the company provides solutions in analytics, machine intelligence, networking, multi-domain sensing, and physical sciences. Its history includes pioneering work on the ARPANET and the first email, and it focuses on areas such as quantum-secure networks. BBN serves defense, intelligence, scientific, and federal customers with research, development, testing, and engineering services that support national security and advanced technology programs.
About RTX
RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies, is a global aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems, products and services. It specializes in aircraft engines, avionics, cybersecurity solutions and defense systems, serving the aerospace, defense, intelligence and security sectors. With a history spanning more than a century, RTX combines expertise from its predecessor companies to support technological development. Headquartered in Waltham, MA, the company employs about 185,000 people worldwide. Its clients include the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.K. Ministry of Defence, Airbus and Boeing. RTX supports commercial and military programs by focusing on safety, performance and efficiency, while addressing operational challenges across multiple sectors.