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05 Feb 24. Lengthy delays to a £3.2bn battlefield communications system have forced the British Army to extend the life of the ageing one it was due to replace by up to a decade, raising the risk of an enemy intercepting critical information. The next-generation system, known as Morpheus, had been due to enter service from the middle of this decade, replacing the Bowman radio technology first introduced more than 20 years ago. James Cartlidge, defence procurement minister, revealed in a written statement last month that Bowman’s out-of-service date had been “extended out to no later than 2035, and no earlier than 2031, to bridge the capability gap until Morpheus delivers”. Responding to parliamentary questions put forward by John Healey, shadow defence secretary, Cartlidge said Bowman had already been upgraded several times and would be again as a result of the delay to Morpheus. Defence analysts, however, warned that the ongoing delay to its deployment could leave British forces relying on insecure communications on the battlefield. “The core Bowman architecture is already 25 years old — by 2035, even with some updates, it’ll be ancient,” said Francis Tusa, editor of the Defence Analysis newsletter. “Aspects of Bowman are already not secure and have low data rates to pass information. By 2035, the system will be . . . insecure and not fit for purpose.” Morpheus has been described as the “brain” of the army’s future armoured vehicles and a wider network linking infantry with commanders, sensors and weapons. But it has become mired in delays. In mid-December the government abandoned a £395m contract with General Dynamics, the US defence company which had the lead on designing an open architecture programme for the transition from Bowman, for which it is also the main contractor. Earlier that month, the government revealed it had spent just under £770mn in total on Morpheus. The new system involves the development of both software and hardware, including battlefield radios, and its open architecture is meant to give the army greater flexibility for future upgrades by allowing other bidders to compete for contracts. The latest setback adds to a growing list of weapons programmes that have been hit by long delays and gone over budget. Mark Francois, Conservative MP and former armed forces minister, said Morpheus had been an “unmitigated disaster; already years late and now potentially over a further decade away from finally entering front-line service”. Recommended News in-depthUK defence spending Lack of logistic support for carriers lays bare state of British navy He likened it to the situation with Ajax, the Army’s long-delayed £5.5bn armoured vehicle programme, for which General Dynamics is also the main contractor. “Morpheus is now surpassing Ajax — which was, ironically, designed to carry it — as one of the greatest procurement debacles in the history of the modern British Army,” he said. Maria Eagle, Labour’s shadow defence procurement minister, said the government had “poured £766mn of taxpayer’s money down the drain on Morpheus with little to nothing to show for it”. The Ministry of Defence said: “Bowman continues to provide secure communications on the battlefield. Having already received several upgrades, Bowman will be updated again, ensuring that the army continues to operate a secure and capable communications system.” General Dynamics declined to comment. Meanwhile, a cross-party group of MPs on Sunday warned that British troops’ ability to fight at “high intensity” would be in doubt as long as shortages of personnel and equipment persisted. In a highly critical report, the House of Commons defence committee said that although the UK’s armed forces had “deployed above their capacity in response to the worsening security situation”, every branch had “capability shortfalls and stockpile shortages” and was “losing personnel faster than they can recruit”. Troops were also “consistently overstretched”, the committee said, which “negatively impacted retention as well as delaying the development of warfighting readiness”. The MoD said the armed forces were “always ready to protect and defend the UK”, and that boosting recruitment and retention was a “top priority”. (Source: FT.com)
BATTLESPACE Comment: One of the causes of the Bowman delay was the reluctance of the MoD to pay GDUK the extra £300m for the EVO (Evolve To Open) to evolve Bowman to Morpheus. Questions have been asked as to why an evolution was required and why a new system could not be introduced from scratch. The other reason was the ‘lessons learnt’ from the Ukraine war which required an additional EW layer on Morpheus to protect the integrity of the system on the battlefield. Industry has already taken the lead in providing an ‘off the shelf solution’ in the form of the Everest system developed by L3Harris and Leonardo DRS and Systematic as demonstrated at the Dorset BATTLELAB last year. Everest 2 is in development and will be demonstrated later this year and believed to include Troppo systems from Comtech and its partner Spectra. There are other developments of MeshNet solutions by the Royasl marines using Persistenst6 Systems MPU 5 radios as supplied by Steatite and TrellisWare software, a Viasat company along with satcom developments. So, with industry initiatives the gap between Bowman and Morpheus can be considerably narrowed.
01 Feb 24. Comtech Receives Government Approval to Move Forward on $544m U.S. Army Contract. Comtech (NASDAQ: CMTL) announced today it received approval from the U.S. Army Contracting Command to move forward on the Company’s previously announced $544m Global Field Service Representative (GFSR) contract. Under this contract, Comtech will provide onsite professional engineering services, as well as supply and support the Company’s market leading satellite and terrestrial networking communications technologies for the Project Manager Tactical Network (PM TN) for the GFSR support program. The GFSR program provides ongoing communications and IT infrastructure support for the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and NATO-enabling U.S. and coalition forces to maintain robust, resilient, and secure connectivity for global all-domain operations in all environments. This task order was awarded on Comtech’s existing contract with the U.S. Army, which leverages the ten-year, $5.1 bn Global Tactical Communications Systems (GTACS) II indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle. Comtech was initially selected as one of multiple GTACS II IDIQ awardees in 2020. The GTACS II contract is designed to support of the Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), and PM TN. GTACS II provides the rapid acquisition of a wide range of C3T hardware, software, engineering services and logistics support services with an emphasis on tactical satellite communications.
01 Feb 24. U.S. Can Respond Decisively to Cyber Threat Posed by China. The cyber challenge posed by China is unlike any challenge ever faced by the U.S. and its allies, said the commander of United States Cyber Command.
Speaking yesterday before the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone told lawmakers that cyber actors in China have used malware to hold at risk critical U.S. infrastructure such as systems that provide water, electricity and fuel to U.S. citizens. He said those efforts are meant to provide options for the Chinese in crisis or conflict.
“When we have discovered them in these critical infrastructures, the first thing that we need to do is to make sure that we get them out,” Nakasone said. “The second thing is that we need to have a vigilance that continues onward. This is not an episodic threat that we’re going to face. This is persistent … we have to operate every day; we have to have a vigilance. We have to have offensive and defensive capabilities.”
Despite those threats, Nakasone said U.S. cyber warriors are more than adequate defenders of the nation’s infrastructure.
“The men and women of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency continue to maintain our strategic advantage by contesting the threats posed by in cyberspace by using the full scope of our authorities and the full spectrum of our capabilities to impose costs, deny benefits, and encourage restraint on the part of our adversary.”
Nakasone also said the U.S. has its own offensive, cyber capability and making that capability well known serves as a deterrent against Chinese cyber aggression.
“We do have the capability, and we’re very, very good—the best,” Nakasone said. “And in terms of the way that we communicate it, we communicate it in many different ways—from our policymakers who have these discussions to the exercises that we conduct to the real-world examples that, that we do with a series of different partners.”
While Nakasone told lawmakers he believed China is a “near-peer adversary,” he also reassured those lawmakers that he believes the U.S. will maintain its supremacy in cyberspace.
Nakasone has served as the commander of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency since May 2018. He relinquishes his position Friday.(Source: U.S. DoD)
31 Jan 24. Global: Abuse of unpatched software vulnerabilities will prolong security, operational risks for firms. Reports emerged on 30 January that a Chinese-affiliated threat actor, ‘UNC5221’ (also known as ‘UTA0178’), is weaponising recently disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti virtual private network (VPN) devices to drop loader malware in a multi-stage cyber operation. The attack exploits CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887, which can allow an actor to execute unauthorised remote code. UNC5221 has been exploiting these vulnerabilities since early December 2023 to obtain access to devices and then drop loader malware (‘KrustyLoader’) to download the post-exploitation framework, ‘Silver’, onto the vulnerable device. Silver is a legitimate red-team tool that threat actors abuse, underscoring how legitimate tools can be employed in malicious operations that may circumvent security detections. These vulnerabilities were initially disclosed on 10 January, though as of 26 January, Ivanti has stated that the patches for the flaws are delayed, prolonging organisations’ susceptibility to exploitation by UNC5221. Ivanti has released temporary mitigation via an XML file to alleviate potential exploitation while patches are being developed. (Source: Sibylline)
01 Feb 24. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) delivered the first production Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) major end item, an Integrated Collaborative Environment (ICE), to the U.S. Army on December 19, 2023.
Working at an accelerated pace, the Northrop Grumman team will deliver additional major end items in early 2024 to support the Army’s aggressive modernization schedule. As part of the Low-Rate Initial Production award, Northrop Grumman is producing IBCS equipment and providing product engineering and logistics support.
- The ICE is a modular, electromagnetic interference-protected shelter hosting battle management workstations which enable warfighters to perform air and missile defense planning and defensive operations.
- Upcoming major end item deliveries will include the Engagement Operation Centers and Integrated Fire Control Network relays.
Expert:
Rebecca Torzone, vice president and general manager, combat systems and mission readiness, Northrop Grumman: “Northrop Grumman is working at an accelerated delivery schedule because the U.S. Army and its allies understand the power of IBCS and how it revolutionizes the warfighter’s approach to the battlespace. Providing IBCS equipment for testing and fielding brings more accurate decision making, improved situational awareness and a shield of security to the warfighter.”
Details on IBCS:
IBCS is the cornerstone of the Army’s air and missile defense modernization strategy, allowing forces to maintain overmatch while reducing mission risk. It has the ability to rapidly network any sensor, including fielded and developmental radars, to any shooter and deliver decision-quality fire control data across joint networks as shown in multiple successful tests and demonstrations.
In 2023, IBCS was approved for full rate production and achieved initial operational capability, enabling the Army to set a fielding schedule for operational air defense units.
IBCS is a revolutionary command and control system unifying current and future assets in the battlespace, regardless of source, service or domain. Through its modular, open and scalable architecture, IBCS gives warfighters capabilities not previously available by fusing sensor data for a single actionable picture of the full battlespace, enabling rapid, informed decisions to optimize shooters. This capability gives warfighters more time to make decisions on how best to defeat threats.
IBCS is the centerpiece of the U.S. Army’s modernization strategy for air and missile defense and is currently being fielded in Poland. IBCS is a foundational element for the multi-domain, multi-national future.
01 Feb 24. US: FBI takedown reduces cyber espionage risks to critical infrastructure firms via infected routers. On 31 January, the FBI seized control of hundreds of routers that were infected with a botnet by the Chinese state-sponsored group ‘Volt Typhoon’. Volt Typhoon had infected hundreds of small office and home office (SOHO) routers with their proprietary botnet ‘KV Botnet’. This allowed the threat actors the ability to move laterally from small routers to wider corporate networks of US critical infrastructure organisations for future cyber espionage operations. The seizure occurred less than two months after a cyber security company reported on the hijacked routers and linked them to Volt Typhoon. The FBI used the botnet’s own command-and-control (C2) mechanism to remotely delete the KV Botnet from infected routers and sever connections to other botnet-connected devices. Volt Typhoon is known to conduct espionage against US critical infrastructure, posing heightened security risks to such organisations. The FBI recommends restarting affected routers to ensure disconnection from the botnet and applying suggested mitigation steps to prevent possible reinfection. (Source: Sibylline)
30 Jan 24. Lockheed Martin, NVIDIA Demonstrate AI-Driven Digital Twin with Potential to Advance Predictive Forecasting.
Demo Marks One-Year Milestone for Digital Twin Project which Fuses Earth’s Ocean Surface Temperatures to Support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mission.
In a year where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported record ocean temperatures, an innovative project from Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), built in collaboration with NVIDIA, is showing how artificial intelligence can be used to fuse data and detect anomalies in current environmental conditions.
Since 2022, Lockheed Martin has collaborated with NVIDIA to build a prototype of an AI-driven Earth and Space Observing Digital Twin that can:
- Process live streams of incoming weather data, apply AI and machine learning to analyze the data,
- Display current global environmental conditions from satellite and ground-based observations and output from weather forecasting models.
Recently, the project reached achieved a significant milestone, demonstrating one of NOAA’s critical data pipelines – sea surface temperatures – to highlight multi-sensor fusion from satellite and model data along with short term temperature anomalies.
The Earth and Space Observing Digital Twin aims to provide NOAA with an efficient and centralized approach to fuse and visualize data from various space and earth sensors. The demo showed NOAA and other government customers the potential of using AI to display high-resolution, accurate, and timely depictions of satellites and sensor data.
“A platform such as our digital twin could serve as a one-stop-shop for global weather monitoring and could enable more accurate initial conditions for predictive forecasting,” said Lynn Montgomery, AI research engineer at Lockheed Martin. “Every day, NOAA receives terabytes of weather data from numerous space and Earth-based sensors, and this project helps fuse this information accurately to support timely depiction of global conditions.”
The project uses Lockheed Martin’s OpenRosetta3D software and the NVIDIA Omniverse development platform to build applications that aggregate data in real time. The Digital Twin uses these technologies to advance 4D visualizations and display this information in a digestible format.
“From monitoring current environmental conditions to predicting them, digital twins can help climate and weather enterprises tackle their toughest AI and forecasting challenges,” said Dion Harris, director of accelerated computing product solutions at NVIDIA. “This latest milestone in our collaborative efforts demonstrates how NVIDIA Omniverse can quickly synthesize terabytes of NOAA data from a large number of sources to speed up global weather monitoring and prediction.”
Lockheed Martin’s next plans are to incorporate additional data streams — such as space weather and sea ice concentrations — into the Earth and Space Observing Digital Twin next year.
This project was funded by NOAA SAE Joint Venture Partnerships for the exploration of possibilities for a future state and not a mission itself.
01 Feb 24. BAE Systems is ramping up its innovation efforts, this time by being the first in its industry to create an AI-powered learning system meant to make military trainees “mission ready sooner”.
In partnership with Cambridge-based and AI-powered tech scale up, Obrizum, the British defence giant has curated a platform that combines the arms of its current training courses into one – the iDigital Learning Environment (DLE).
The DLE utilises Obrizum’s AI-powered “adaptive learning” technology to individually tailor virtual training experiences, curate data-backed feedback, and determine progress along the way.
“Technology changes as quickly as the threat does and this allows us to be more innovative than ever before to meet the needs of the digitally native students of today and tomorrow,” Lucy Walton, head of Training for BAE Systems’ Air sector, said.
“By harnessing technologies such as those delivered by Obrizum we can create the kind of immersive and engaging training environments our customers need and ensure training is a forethought, not an afterthought,” she continued.
But how does the new system work? Through “automation, adaptability and analytics,” Obrizum founder and chief executive, Chibeza Agley, told City A.M.
It brings the worlds of classrooms, personalised learning, and simulation based training together into one “galaxy” of modules, he added.
It will rid the “inordinate” amount of manual labour that comes with “old-fashioned” ways of programmes and learning assessments, Agley said, while cutting unnecessary “overhead” costs, such as transport and time.
(Source: News Now/City AM)
26 Jan 24. US moves to dismiss Ligado spectrum lawsuit, disputes court jurisdiction and claims.
“Ligado fails to plead any plausible facts to support its purely speculative claim that the Government has occupied its licensed spectrum,” alleges the DoJ motion to dismiss the satellite communication firm’s suit in US Federal Claims Court.
The Justice Department (DoJ) has filed to dismiss satellite communications firm Ligado Network’s October 2023 lawsuit against the federal government, arguing both that the court does not have jurisdiction and that the company’s claims have no legal basis.
Ligado’s suit alleged that officials at the Departments of Defense and Commerce took “unlawful actions” to, in effect, improperly seize without compensation the firm’s L-band spectrum granted to build a 5G communications network by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2020 over department objections.
The DoJ motion, filed Thursday in the US Court of Federal Claims by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, is the latest episode in the decades-long drama over Ligado’s plan to use L-band spectrum normally used by satellites to develop a wireless cell phone network, which DoD, Commerce and a number of other federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation, insist will interfere with signals from the Global Position Satellite (GPS).
GPS is used by myriad military weapon systems; the US air traffic control network; trains, planes and automobiles for navigation; and everyday citizens trying to find their way from here to there using interactive maps on their cell phones.
The DoJ motion (Case 1:23-cv-01797-EJD) first asserts that rather than the US Federal Claims Court, the issue instead falls under jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Act, which “established a comprehensive remedial scheme” for FCC licensing decisions.
Secondly, the motion argues that even if the court had jurisdiction, Ligado’s claims do not legally stand up due to two key “deficiencies.”
“First, Ligado cannot establish a cognizable property interest in its FCC license because ‘[t]he policy of the [Communications] Act is clear that no person is to have anything in the nature of a property right as a result of the granting of a license,’ and the Government may modify or revoke the license at any time.” Indeed, the motion says that earlier legal rulings established that FCC licenses are “not property.”
Second, the DoJ motion says, Ligado’s complaint “fails to allege any authorized Government actions that could give rise to takings liability, and instead it contends that the Government has been engaged in an unlawful effort to preclude Ligado from using its FCC license. These contentions necessarily preclude any takings liability.”
The motion goes on to contest each of the Ligado suit’s four specific legal claims. In particular, DoJ alleges “Ligado fails to plead any plausible facts to support its purely speculative claim that the Government has occupied its licensed spectrum. And its theory that the Government required a spectrum ‘dead zone’ around the separate spectrum bands allocated for GPS use similarly fails because Ligado cannot identify any authorized Government action that precluded it from actually using its modified license.”
In response to the motion, Ligado provided a statement to Breaking Defense saying that, “As set out in the company’s lawsuit, government officials deliberately deprived Ligado of its rightfully licensed property, and the government must be held accountable.
“This attack on an American business by the world’s most powerful institution is contrary to the rule of law and antithetical to the government’s years-long support for the deployment of 5G technology as a vital national priority,” the statement said. “We worked diligently and in good faith with government agencies to find a fair resolution but were left with no choice but to pursue litigation to defend our interests. We continue to stand firmly behind our complaint and will reply to the government’s motion in the appropriate forum.” (Source: Breaking Defense.com)
29 Jan 24. Global: Evolution of ransomware TTPs highlights ongoing operational risks to firms in long term. On 25 January, the security firm Dragos released a report on industrial ransomware trends during Q4 2023. Dragos identified that while there was an observed decline in reported ransomware incidents, groups continue to develop new tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to sustain operations. Despite law enforcement agencies dismantling some ransomware operations, other ransomware groups (such as ‘LockBit’ and ‘Akira’) are refining their methodology by using a new set of techniques known as remote encryption. Certain ransomware incidents during Q4 2023 resulted in significant impact on affected businesses, with some victims’ core business operations suffering prolonged operational downtime. The majority of ransomware attacks in Q4 2023 affected the manufacturing sector at a disproportionate rate, highlighting long-term operational risks for the sector into 2024. Transportation and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) were other frequently targeted operations, facing 24.4% of ransomware attacks during Q4 2023. Ransomware operations pose ongoing elevated operational risks to firms within the aforementioned sectors amid a dynamic ransomware threat landscape. (Source: Sibylline)
24 Jan 24. The Federated Advanced Cyber physical Test range (FACT) project consortium has held its kick-off meeting in Oslo hosted by Kongsberg. On 24 January 2024, the Federated Advanced Cyber physical Test range (FACT) project consortium held its kick-off meeting in Oslo, hosted by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (Project Coordinator).
FACT aims to provide an unprecedented new European capability to test and verify the cyber vulnerability of equipment. The project will pave the way for the EU’s autonomy and ability to create and integrate a federated cyber-physical test bed. Participants included representatives of 19 participating entities from 15 Member States and Associated Country. It was an opportunity for all to present themselves and express how they will respectively contribute to the project. The Work Package leaders also presented their project plan and their expected final results. The consortium members recalled the urgent need to strengthen cyber defence capabilities and to increase coordination and cooperation between nations in order to improve the ability to prevent, detect, defend against, recover from and deter cyber-attacks on military systems.
Eirik Lie, President of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace said: “We are pleased to be leading the FACT project to create a shared toolbox for cyber physical testing with a common architecture and environment. The strong participation from institutions and companies across Europe is a good example of the cross-border collaboration that is needed to develop efficient responses to future threats.”
A project selected by the European Defence Fund 2022: The European Commission has awarded €26.9 m over a three-year period to the FACT project led by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace. The European Defence Fund (EDF) is a financial instrument created by the European Union in 2017 as part of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The first call for proposals was published in 2021. FACT is one of the 41 projects selected for the 2022 EDF (out of 134 proposals submitted).
What comes next? Regarding the next steps, the FACT consortium confirmed that the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) will be presented at the next General Assembly in June 2024. It will define the targeted performance of the proposed system for all stakeholders and include the description of its use in a centralised and federated manner. It will be the basis for defining a business model and developing a sustainable range/laboratory capability as a common European asset after the project.
The FACT consortium: Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS (Coordinator) Norway; Approach, Belgium; Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria; BALTIJOS PAZANGIU TECHNOLOGIJU INSTITUTAS, Lithuania; BIANOR, Bulgaria; certSIGN, Romania; CR14, Estonia; Crosshill, Finland; Derant, Denmark; Emproof, Netherlands; Latvijas Mobilais Telefons SIA, Latvia; Leonardo, Italy; Nokia Bell Labs, Hungary; Norges Tekniske og Naturvitenskaplige Universitet (NTNU), Norway; Rheinmetall; Germany; Space Hellas, Greece; Terma, Denmark; Thales Norway, Norway; University of Genoa, Italy.
(Source: www.joint-forcescom)
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Spectra Group (UK) Ltd
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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