Sponsored by Spectra Group
https://spectra-group.co.uk/
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10 Sep 21. Spectra Group receives another SlingShot order from major European Customer. Spectra Group, the specialist provider of secure voice, data and satellite communications systems, has received an order for their SlingShot satellite communications system from an undisclosed European ministry of defence. The order is for specialist use by troops currently deployed on remote operations globally. This announcement coincides with DSEI taking place in London 14-17 September where Spectra Group will be exhibiting on stand H6-107. Spectra Group’s SlingShot system is unique in that it can be integrated with in-service UHF and VHF tactical communications radios to extend the range from 30km to 1000(+) km on the move, in all conditions. By integrating SlingShot and Inmarsat’s L-TAC satellite service with in-service radios, the deployed troops have immediately gained communications capability that would otherwise not be available. In addition to Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) voice, SlingShot includes a data capability supporting critical applications such as situational awareness tools; GPS tracking; reporting and other data messaging without the requirement for ground-based line-of-sight rebroadcasting infrastructure. Enabling an extension of the in-service radios with the robust SlingShot system also means that troops do not need to carry both VHF radios (for line-of-sight) and UHF TACSAT radios (for strategic rear link). With SlingShot, a single radio can carry-out both functions. Finally, the small omni-directional antennas utilised with SlingShot provide manpack, land, sea and air platforms, with real-time Comms on the Move (COTM) rather than Comms on the Pause, as experienced with traditional TACSAT systems.
In March 2021, the British Armed Forces announced that they had equipped regular Army units with Spectra Group’s SlingShot system, as they deploy on Operations and Exercises, to enable tactical satellite communications across the area of operations. At the time, Major General Jonathan Cole, Director of Information and CIO of the British Army, said: “SlingShot is a fantastic addition to our communications inventory, delivering vital capability to deployed troops. Of particular note is the fact that the training burden is minimal as the system is effectively a ‘bolt-on’ to our current BOWMAN radios. SlingShot is a game-changer in allowing our troops to operate at reach without the additional requirement to deploy more troops to provide rebroadcast capability when operating at Battle Group level and below. I am delighted to be working with Spectra on the fielding of such an important capability”.
Simon Davies, CEO of Spectra Group, said: “We are very pleased to receive yet another order from a European specialist user group. We have seen SlingShot become a battle-winning capability used by Special Forces across the globe, but we’re delighted to see our SlingShot system now being procured for use on operations by this new customer for the first time”. He added: “The beauty of SlingShot is that it can be “plugged into” any in-service tactical radio system. Numerous Armed Forces, including the British Army, are leading the way with this kind of approach to the integration of SlingShot but we’re now seeing other global forces, including the USA, adopt a similar strategy to meet every Beyond Line Of Sight communications scenario”.
26 Aug 21. PPM Systems to Display its COTS RFoF Solutions for Open Architectures. PPM Systems is excited to return to the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) trade show in September.
The company has been developing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) RF over fibre equipment to take advantage of open architectures. Visitors to DSEI can see a commercially-developed proof of concept on display at PPM’s stand.
New to PPM, a selection of Trival Antene’s high-quality antennas and masts will be on display at DSEI. Their antennas complement the existing PPM Systems range by adding an increased capability in the lower bands, with the addition of a new range of tactical antennas and masts.
Other products showcased will include the Rodent 4 military RF over fibre system, which enables signals intelligence (SIGINT) antennas to be deployed at a long stand-off distance, allowing personnel to safely obtain radio spectrum intelligence from the intended target zone. PPM will also showcase the latest bespoke filter and RF conditioning solutions, with individual filters to complete solution–system integration available.
Dan Bromley, Technical Director, said: “PPM Systems is pleased to return to exhibiting in person. We are looking forward to discussing the work we have done in developing RF over fibre solutions for defence open standards.”
DSEI takes place at ExCeL, London from 14-17 September 2021. PPM Systems can be found on stand H2-562.
Contact PPM Systems at to arrange a meeting at the show or request a guest code for 50% off the DSEI verification fee (code valid until 31st August).
06 Sep 21. KIRINTEC are exhibiting at DSEI from 14-17th of September on stand H4-494, where they are showcasing our current products and launching the latest addition to our product portfolio – K-CEMA Neo. K-CEMA Neo is our latest next generation, multi-role and agile system for Cyber and Electromagnetic Activities (CEMA). This lightweight, single form factor product has been developed by Kirintec this year and will be shown for the first time at the DSEI show. We understand the challenges of conflict in the information age, and increasingly innovative adversaries and state actors operating in the ‘grey’ space of conflict. Kirintec have produced an innovative solution, using Key User Requirements drawn from across our customer base.
The ground-breaking new systems features include the ability to:
- Detect threat signals anywhere in the Electro Magnetic Environment (EME) between – High Frequency and Super High Frequency (initially 20 MHz to 6 GHz)
- Delivers a selected Responsive, Hybrid or Active countermeasure at the right frequency, power and time to protect you.
- Provide the ability to rapidly respond to new threats to new threats using novel system and non-system related concepts.
- Conduct continuous Electronic Surveillance and provide Signal Analysis on the move.
- Integrate with other CEMA and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems to enable analysis and exploitation of the Electro Magnetic Environment (EME).
- Interoperate with National and International partners when considering the use, control or denial of the EME.
- Be deployable and available in all operational environments.
- Employ hardware, software, data and FPGA open standards.
- Reduce Size and Weight burden, without loss of performance, to front line troops.
K-CEMA Neo provides users with the ability to combine multiple functions and capabilities into one CEMA system with a common architecture which can evolve and adapt to meet emerging threats.
18 Aug 21. ECS’s first UAV and DO-160 certified RF data link to be unveiled at DSEI.
- Enterprise Control Systems unveils small, lightweight, low-power RF data link for use in
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and Unmanned
Surface Vehicles (USVs)
- Tove to be shown for the first time at DSEI 2021 in London
British RF technology company, Enterprise Control Systems (ECS) today announces the launch of Tove RF data link. Tove is a small, lightweight, low-power, high-performance RF data link and will be unveiled for the first time at DSEI, stand H2-956, between 14-17 September 2021, Excel London.
Designed to take advantage of the growing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) and Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) market, Tove is the first of ECS’s family of low-profile lightweight form factor data downlinks certified to DO-160 (RTCA). It packs in comparable functionality to ECS’s popular Evenlode data link but delivered in a lightweight form factor with significantly reduced size, weight and power (SwaP), making it the ideal UAV payload. When integrated into an unmanned system such as a drone, Tove can cost-effectively carry out Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions in air, sea or on land, in some cases, requiring extreme ranges of up to 100 kilometres. It benefits from Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology that ECS is renowned for. This enables the maintenance of a robust long-range connection with rapid re-gain of the link. It also allows for seamless integration with existing ECS ground receiver infrastructure. The device can be provided with a proprietary encryption and encryption management system that provides a sovereign capability to a nation’s security forces, ensuring the complete protection of the data.
Jackson White, Business Development Director at ECS, comments, “Tove has been developed in response to the opportunities presented by the evolving UAV, UGV and USV markets. These platforms present significant cost, time and capability benefits compared to deploying high value fixed and rotary wing platforms to carry out the same task. ECS is bringing its breadth of RF data link expertise into this emerging sector. Tove is the first step in our strategic roadmap of RF data link capabilities for miniature environments.”
The onboard high definition, low latency video encoder provides superior compression, reduces channel bandwidth, increases spectral efficiency, and offers best in class range. GPS and telemetry data is also added to the Tove transport stream to provide positional information to the fixed or mobile receive stations. New and legacy third party sensors can be connected via its HD SDI, CVBS, USB and Ethernet inputs, extending the platform’s capabilities without hindering its task. Data collected by digital or analogue sensors – such as video, audio, radar, or platform management information – is securely transmitted to the ground control centre.
Tove is compatible with all ECS viewing terminals and ground receive infrastructure.
16 Aug 21. Minimizing Risk with FPGAs and Hardware-Based Security. Conventional data security technology has entered a mode of persistent escalation. System designers invest heavily in design and validation, while attackers continually uncover, exploit, and share new vulnerabilities. The result is a stream of updates and patches to close known attack methods. To slow the evolution of new threats and protect vulnerable systems from malicious actors, a paradigm shift and a new approach is needed.
Hardware-based cybersecurity using field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology provides stronger, more cost-effective protection for devices used by critical infrastructure, military, and intelligence organizations. Unlike the CPUs that power software firewalls, FPGAs are limited to a finite number of possible states, greatly reducing the scope of potential implementation flaws or vulnerabilities.
Why hardware-based security?
Guarantees and fundamental assurances are rare in cybersecurity. The goal is typically to find the solution that offers the lowest risk of compromise compared to other solutions, with the understanding that the risk will always be greater than zero.
Hardware-based security reduces security risk to the lowest possible level and gives organizations a high degree of confidence that their components cannot perform any functions other than the ones they were designed to perform.
While nothing can eliminate all cybersecurity risk, the addition of hardware security technology can turn previously vulnerable spots into the strongest points in a network and dramatically reduce an organization’s attack surface.
CPUs and firewalls: inherently vulnerable
Modern computing platforms are based on the work of Alan Turing, who proved that even a relatively basic computing device that can iteratively read and write from storage (or memory) can theoretically implement any arbitrarily complex algorithm. The only limitation in the complexity of the states that a Turing Machine can take on is the amount of storage that it has available. Attackers take advantage of this complexity by finding ways to “trick” the Central Processing Unit (CPU) in a computing system to jump outside the bounds of normal execution and start to process new instructions.
A common approach to protect a vulnerable CPU from attack is to implement a network firewall: a filter that monitors external messages and blocks or modifies anything that follows a pattern known to be (or potentially) malicious. Many modern firewalls are built on highly specialized platforms with security-specific features, but despite these advanced features, a firewall that is implemented using a CPU has the effect of simply putting a somewhat less-vulnerable CPU in front of a vulnerable CPU.
FPGAs: controlling the process
An alternative approach to implement security functions is to use a finite state machine or dedicated circuit. This approach lacks the unlimited flexibility of a Turing machine, but it has the benefit of dramatically reducing or eliminating the potential for unintended execution. A dedicated circuit can still implement very complex logical functions, but unlike a regular CPU it does not rely on iterative execution and random access to central storage or memory.
A practical way to implement complex dedicated circuits in modern systems is to use a field programmable gate array, or FPGA. An FPGA is programmable in that the circuit that it implements can be updated and replaced through a configuration file. With careful design, the process used to load a new configuration can be isolated from the path of data through the FPGA, resulting in a circuit that cannot be changed during execution.
FPGAs and security
The use of FPGA technology for advanced networking is not new. There are many examples of networking systems that use FPGAs to offload high-speed, repetitive operations, and there are mature libraries for circuit designs to implement robust network stacks and protocol adapters. However, most conventional FPGA-based systems are designed to maximize performance and ease of configuration over security.
A secure FPGA filter architecture needs to ensure complete isolation of the data path from the configuration process. When designed properly, this approach dramatically changes the attack surface of the resulting system. Access to the protected CPU can now be processed through a dedicated circuit in the FPGA. A properly designed, application-specific filter will ensure that even a vulnerable CPU will never receive malicious content.
Additionally, most modern FPGAs can be configured to only accept a digitally signed configuration file. If the secret key needed to sign a new configuration is external to the admin CPU, then even with access to this segmented processor an attacker can still not change the configuration of the FPGA.
When hardware-based filtering is implemented using this model, organizations can achieve a level of security that far exceeds what a software-based firewall can provide. Rather than adding more layers of software to protect a flawed platform, FPGAs allow organizations to focus on the design of practical circuits that can monitor and enforce strict data and protocol rule sets.
Embedding cybersecurity
One of the most promising applications of FPGA-based security is in the creation of embedded cybersecurity technology to protect industrial control systems and other critical systems.
In recent years, threat actors have developed highly sophisticated tools to attack industrial, military, and governmental operations. Some attacks aim to steal data or infect user workstations, while other, more serious, threats are aimed lower in the network and attempt to disrupt physical processes. A successful low-level attack against a power plant, water system, chemical facility, or other critical infrastructure site could do millions of dollars of damage and put thousands of lives at risk.
As more and more operational technology (OT) devices are connected to networks, the risk of this type of catastrophic breach increases. OT devices are particularly vulnerable to attacks, because they were not designed with security in mind and historically were operated on isolated networks. To manage the risk, critical infrastructure operators have been forced to protect their devices with increasingly complex security solutions. At best, these solutions are difficult and costly to maintain; at worst, they actually create new vulnerabilities due to improper configuration.
ICS network owners are moving toward a new strategy for defending against cyber threats: embedded cybersecurity. Rather than securing their systems by adding new layers of infrastructure and support alongside them, network owners are seeking OT equipment that includes built-in security technology. Systems with integrated security technology can secure themselves without the need for external infrastructure.
XDE Radium: FPGA-based security in action
Owl Cyber Defense is the industry leader in FPGA-based cybersecurity technology, providing miniaturized security modules that can be embedded into host devices or implemented as a stand-alone device with extremely low size, weight, and power demands. Owl’s FPGA-based modules support a wide range of use cases for critical infrastructure, military, and intelligence operations.
XDE Radium is a single-board, hardware-enforced cybersecurity module that delivers low-cost, high-performance device-level and network-level cybersecurity. The module features two FPGAs and either an optical or digital isolator, providing high-assurance, hardware-enforced, one-way flow enforcement and packet filtering for data crossing network or domain boundaries. Unlike a network tap, XDE Radium implements a secure protocol break, so that no routable information is passed between source and destination networks.
XDE Radium use case: remote monitoring
Sending data from sensors–such as surveillance cameras—within secure networks to remote monitoring centers is an ideal use case for embedded FPGA-based security technology.
Routing data from sensors through an organization’s existing architecture is often time-consuming and complex and creates multiple opportunities for misconfiguration. A simpler, more secure approach is to stream the data directly to the remote monitoring location, using an XDE Radium module to protect the device from inbound threats.
Radium’s hardware-enforced one-way data path ensures that malicious data cannot enter the camera from outside, while whitelisting protects the camera’s outgoing data from unauthorized access.
The ongoing shift toward smart devices, cloud services, and increased connectivity creates both new opportunities and new risks. Hardware-enforced security, based on FPGA technology, represents a fundamental shift in network security technology and offers a path toward truly resilient and secure systems.
20 Nov 20. Bruker Launches the RAPIDplus (mod 4) to Answer the Need for Detecting Chemical Threats in Maritime Environments. Today, Bruker announced the launch of the novel RAPIDplus (mod 4) Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) based stand-off detector for Chemical Warfare Agents (CWA) and Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TIC). RAPIDplus (mod 4) allows automated, 24/7 monitoring of chemical hazards at distances up to 5 km. It is specifically designed for maritime, coastal, and shipboard environments which makes this instrument unique.
RAPIDplus (mod 4) is based on the field-proven FTIR technology used in the widely deployed RAPIDplus (mod 3). The instrument has been designed with advanced materials selected to withstand harsh maritime environments, with enhanced sealing and a clear focus on maintainability. Our aim was to achieve customer driven needs while maintaining the superior analytical performance of our technology.
RAPIDplus (mod 4) is the first stand-off detector especially designed for maritime environments. The system has been extensively tested against the pertinent military and environmental standards associated with a corrosive environment and has succesfully demonstrated its superior capabilities in this challenging application.
“The RAPIDplus (mod 4) is the first chemical stand-off detector designed for maritime applications including the navy, coast guard, port security, and more. We are convinced that the combination of proven Bruker stand-off technology tailored for this application will provide the same high level of reliability, performance and protection that is expected by all of our customers across the globe.” said Dr.-Ing. Armin Gembus, Vice President Business Area Gas Raman and Trace Detection.
For more information on RAPIDplus (mod 4) please visit: www.bruker.com/rapidplus
About Bruker Corporation
Bruker is enabling scientists to make breakthrough discoveries and develop new applications that improve the quality of human life. Bruker’s high-performance scientific instruments and high-value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to explore life and materials at molecular, cellular and microscopic levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling innovation, improved productivity and customer success in life science molecular research, in applied and pharma applications, in microscopy and nanoanalysis, and in industrial applications, as well as in cell biology, preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics and proteomics research and clinical microbiology. For more information, please visit: www.bruker.com.
02 Aug 21. On 2 August 2021 Horizon Aerospace Technologies (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Horizon Technologies) announced the release of a new airborne SIGINT product: BlackFish™ a small airborne qualified, Sat Phone SIGINT system which simultaneously monitors the Iridium, Thuraya, and Inmarsat (IsatPhone Pro) Sat Phone networks. Due to its small size and weight (8kg), it is ideal for fixed and rotary wing manned and unmanned aircraft. Horizon Technologies’ CEO John Beckner said, “Horizon Technologies has been listening to our customers who want smaller, lighter systems and the ability to simultaneously monitor multiple Sat Phone networks. They also want a common SIGINT product across manned aircraft and UAVs. BlackFish™ is the answer to these requirements and like all our products is non-ITAR.”
BlackFish™ uses state-of-the-art technology, and is based on a Software Defined Radio (SDR), equipped with powerful CPU and GPU processing capacity, a passively cooled system ensuring maximal reliability and performance. The system has no moving parts which ensures high reliability during operation in extreme conditions. It is fully qualified to DO-160. BlackFish™ is a completely self-contained Sat Phone monitoring system; it doesn’t require any external peripherals like external RF switching and complex cabling or multiple antennas which impacts the overall reliability of the system. The highly sensitive L-band receiver front-end targets Sat Phone communications, and the system offers maximum out of band rejection of interference frequencies while being broadband, and having an excellent dynamic range to handle near-far radio scenarios. With our proprietary software, it can be easily integrated into aircraft tactical mission systems to look like one of many ISR sensors.
BlackFish™ is now in production, and Beckner announced “We will have an actual production version at our stand at DSEI 14-17 September 2021 (UK Pavilion: H2-958), and will be demonstrating the system’s capabilities. While we are still supporting our legacy FlyingFish™ products, BlackFish™ is now our flagship product, and we are excited to be selling it to our worldwide government end users in support of their expanding ISR requirements.” Beckner added, “We have demo units available for evaluation anywhere worldwide and we look forward to engaging with our current and future customers to introduce BlackFish™ as the “go to” Sat Phone SIGINT solution.”
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Spectra Group Plc
Spectra Group (UK) Ltd, internationally renowned award-winning information security and communications specialist with a proven record of accomplishment.
Spectra is a dynamic, agile and security-accredited organisation that offers secure Hosted and Managed Solutions and Cyber Advisory Services with a track record of delivering on time, to spec and on budget.
With over 15 years of experience in delivering solutions for governments around the globe, elite militaries and private enterprises of all sizes, Spectra’s platinum and gold-level partnerships with third-party vendors ensure the supply of best value leading-edge technology.
Spectra was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise (Innovation) in 2019 for SlingShot.
In November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced its listing as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier by the UK Crown Commercial Services.
Spectra’s CEO, Simon Davies, was awarded 2017 Businessman of the Year by Battlespace magazine.
Founded in 2002, the Company is based in Hereford, UK and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001:2013 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
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