WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's researchers plan to bolster their efforts to create offensive weapons for use in cyber warfare, reflecting a growing concern over digital threats, US officials said Monday.

The US government needed "more and better options" to safeguard the country from assaults on sensitive computer networks and had to invest in both offensive and defensive tools, said Regina Dugan, director of the Pentagon's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

"Malicious cyber attacks are not merely an existential threat to our bits and bytes. They are a real threat to our physical systems, including our military systems," Dugan told a conference.

"To this end, in the coming years we will focus an increasing portion of our cyber research on the investigation of offensive capabilities to address military-specific needs," she said.

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