Sponsored by Spectra Group
https://tacs.at/Spectra
————————————————————————
02 May 19. Spectra Group to attend prestigious Satellite 2019. Spectra Group, UK and US-based communications specialists will be delivering full updates on their SlingShot technology and their participation in the US Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments (AEWE 2019) at Satellite 2019, taking place at the Walter E. Washington Convention Centre, Washington DC, 6-9th May 2019. Satellite 2019 is this year’s largest and most important global connectivity technology event, drawing professionals from over 100 countries to Washington DC to access innovations in satellite technology, conduct business with strategic partners and help drive the future of the satellite industry.
Spectra is an internationally renowned specialist provider of secure voice, data and satellite communications systems. Their US arm, Spectra Group (US) Inc, were selected for AEWE 2019 by the US DoD following impressive contract successes in the US.
The AEWE, fielded by the US Army Maneuver Battle Lab at Fort Benning, focuses on small unit modernization, providing capability developers, the Science and Technology (S&T) community, and industry with a repeatable, credible, rigorous, and validated operational experiment, supporting both concept and material development. The AEWE places cutting edge prototype technologies into the hands of soldiers, providing bottom up input to capability development through early and iterative feedback in a tactical setting.
Successfully utilised and evaluated in a range of operational scenarios by AEWE 2019, Spectra’s game-changing SlingShot is a unique, lightweight frequency conversion device that enables existing, in-service tactical military and commercial VHF/UHF radios to utilize commercial L-band satellites in a TacSat mode. The technology delivers BLOS Comms on the Move (COTM) with low-latency voice and data connectivity to radio networks for ground, vehicle, maritime or airborne platforms, with or without Type 1 or commercial grade encryption. SlingShot’s unique capability provides reliable communications between widely dispersed military forces and/or First Responders operating in austere environments, without the delay or logistical challenges of deploying additional infrastructure.
Simon Davies, President of Spectra Group US said: “Spectra will be attending Satellite 2019 to build on our success within a focused group of US DoD users, as well as to open up new opportunities and to meet the market demand in the United States.” He added “Our US office is fully open for business. Our participation at Satellite 2019 is a natural progression following our recent participation in the Global SOF Symposium where we were able to validate our continuing commitment to developing and delivering technologies that meet the exacting demands of US and international Special Forces’ requirements. Spectra and SlingShot will be on display at Satellite 2019 in Booth #2319.
30 Apr 19. DISA’s MilCloud 2.0 migration is moving forward. The Defense Information Systems Agency is just about halfway through its mandatory migration of non-military defense agencies to MilCloud 2.0. So far the agency is pushing forward with classified system capabilities and making sure the large Fourth Estate agencies begin migrating later this year.
Caroline Bean, DISA’s MilCloud deputy program manager and lead engineer, talked to FCW about the program after her presentation at GDIT Emerge 2019 on April 24.
First, MilCloud 2.0 will roll out Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) impact level 6 for classified data this summer. MilCloud already supports impact level 5 for unclassified workloads.
But the main focus is preparing defense headquarters agencies – including DISA itself — for the migration.
“Things from onboarding to security to operationalizing it, all of those are going to be challenges for each of the Fourth Estate agencies to take a look at what they’re doing, figuring out how to streamline to move to the cloud,” Bean said. “We’re helping them generate those lessons learned and passing those along.”
The biggest challenges so far are with application rationalization and getting the Fourth Estate agencies to a point where they know what they have and how to move it to MilCloud. DISA is having them look at their contracts, budgets, learning what the cloud is, and how to mesh what they have with where they’re going.
“All these migrations — the migration piece is the hard part,” Bean said, adding that most agencies are in the planning phases on only beginning implementation. There are more than 2,000 workloads already in MilCloud 2.0 today, but most of those agencies are “getting a feel for what MilCloud 2.0 is.” (Source: Defense Systems)
29 Apr 19. Defense industrial base cyber program adds a key partner. The Department of Defense’s initiative to spot threats targeting the defense contracting base will get a data infusion with the announcement that Symantec will be joining the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Program. The voluntary public-private information-sharing program facilitates better situational awareness about IT security threats to unclassified contractor networks and information systems and provides participants with classified and unclassified information as well as best practices around information assurance. The addition of Symantec, which already has a robust threat intelligence network in place, could help bolster the quality and sophistication of the information that flows through the program. Symantec claims data for its Global Intelligence Network is culled from 175 million protected endpoints and 123 million attack sensors that collect cyber threat telemetry vectors worldwide.
In order to qualify for the DOD program, a company must be a cleared contractor with the ability to view and handle classified information at the Secret level or higher.
The program is just one of a growing number of tools addressing cybersecurity gaps in the defense contractor space. Military leaders have become increasingly concerned about the impact of compromised hardware or software on weapons and information systems, whether through bugs and other software vulnerabilities or sabotage in the technology supply chain. In both areas, contractors have come under increasing scrutiny as a potential avenue for nation-states to exploit. Growing awareness of threats along with concerns that elements of the defense contracting base are weak links in the government’s cybersecurity supply chain, has led DOD officials and policymakers in Congress to experiment with a range of potential solutions.
A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on cybersecurity threats to the defense industrial base last month drew exasperated responses from a number of senators frustrated that the U.S. was seemingly prioritizing contractor profits and convenience over national security. Ranking member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said, “We’ve got to be the stupidest people in the world to let this happen,” and suggested that the committee and Congress may need to update federal contracting and procurement rules.
Recently, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer told the House Armed Services Committee that tightening up contractor security practices was one of the branch’s top priorities in 2020. He urged lawmakers to pass legislation that would add a new assistant secretary for cybersecurity position that would focus on the defense industrial base.
Earlier this year, DOD CIO Dana Deasy floated the possibility that the department could move away from the current model of contractors self-certifying their compliance with National Institute of Standards and Technology cybersecurity guidelines and instead empower a third-party organization leveraging machine learning to examine and audit contractors’ security posture. (Source: Defense Systems)
02 May 19. AGO commissions new PNG geospatial systems. The director of the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO), Scott Dewar, and representatives from Papua New Guinea conducted a formal hand over of new geospatial IT systems to the National Mapping Bureau in Port Moresby.
The gifting of these enhanced systems is a milestone in AGO’s longstanding relationship with the bureau that dates back to the 1990s. The new technology and training provided by AGO will enhance the capability of the National Mapping Bureau to produce geospatial products across PNG. The new systems were recently used to support PNG’s successful hosting of the 2018 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit. Geospatial products delivered by the National Mapping Bureau were essential to the planning and execution of security operations for the summit. Defence co-operation with PNG reflects a partnership built on a common history, deep community links and shared trade, investment and security interests. It also reflects Australia’s ongoing commitment to support regional partners and further deepen Australia’s engagement in the Pacific.
AGO is the lead geospatial and imagery intelligence organisation in Defence. Its purpose is to provide geospatial intelligence from imagery and other sources in support of Australia’s defence and national interests.
Its functions, as prescribed in the Intelligence Services Act 2001, are:
- To obtain geospatial and imagery intelligence about the capabilities, intentions or activities of people or organisations outside Australia to meet the requirements of the Australian government;
- To obtain geospatial and imagery intelligence for the purposes of meeting the operational, targeting, training and exercise requirements of the Australian Defence Force;
- To obtain geospatial and imagery intelligence for the purposes of supporting Commonwealth and state authorities in carrying out national security functions;
- To communicate in accordance with government requirements the intelligence obtained under the above functions;
- To provide Commonwealth and state authorities and bodies approved by the Minister for Defence imagery and other geospatial products that are not intelligence, technical assistance and support for carrying out their emergency response functions;
- To co-operate with and assist bodies referred to in section 13A in accordance with that section; and
- To provide assistance to the Defence Force in support of military operations and to co-operate with the ADF on intelligence matters.
AGO’s predecessor, the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO), was established under a Cabinet Directive on 8 November 2000 by amalgamating the Australian Imagery Organisation, the Directorate of Strategic Military Geographic Information and the Defence Topographic Agency. (Source: Defence Connect)
01 May 19. Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) will deliver new troposcatter communication systems to the U.S. Army as part of a 10-year, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $663m to ensure troops have access to secure voice and data communications in contested environments.
“Soldiers on the front lines can’t afford dropped calls,” said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. “Our solution, a secure, reliable and wireless troposcatter system, allows troops to communicate in areas that would otherwise be dead zones. Importantly, it also gives the military a way to communicate in satellite-denied environments.”
Troposcatter – short for tropospheric scatter – technology uses particles that make up the Earth’s atmosphere as a reflector for radio signals. Those signals are aimed just above the horizon in the direction of a receiver station. As they pass through the troposphere, some of the energy is scattered back toward the Earth, allowing the receiver station to pick up the signal. Essentially, it creates a secure communications network without the need for cellular towers or satellites.
In addition to battlefield use, troposcatter systems are ideal for crisis response. One of the key challenges first responders face is a lack of reliable communications after a natural disaster. By deploying a troposcatter system, responders can quickly establish networks even where there’s no available power. The systems are easily transportable and can be set up in less than 30 minutes.
“Think about any natural disaster over the last several years; one of the biggest problems is a lack of reliable communications,” said Todd Probert, vice president for Raytheon IIS. “A troposcatter system easily can be deployed anywhere in the world and can transfer data at extremely high rates – the equivalent to streaming 10 high-definition videos simultaneously at a range of more than 115 miles.”
Raytheon will begin delivering the first units by the end of 2019.
08 Apr 19. L3 Telemetry & RF Products (L3 T&F) has announced the expansion of its NSA certified solutions with the release of the KI-700 crypto solution. The KI-700 is an integrated AES-256 based encryption and decryption unit that provides secure uplink and downlink protection for satellite command, telemetry, crosslink and payload communications links. The KI-700 is certified by NSA to protect USG Top Secret and Below (TSAB) data, and can additionally be used to secure the command and telemetry links for foreign and domestic commercial satellites seeking compliance with CNSS Policy No. 12. James Yates, Vice President of Business Development at L3 T&RF said, “We are delighted with this latest addition to our growing portfolio of Information Assurance solutions. We started this product development to address a critical gap in available solutions, and as the need for protected crosslinks and higher data downlinks increases, the market need for the KI-700 is evident.” With headquarters in New York City and approximately 31,000 employees worldwide,
29 Apr 19. Australia’s EA-18G electronic attack capability achieves IOC. Initial operating capability (IOC) has been achieved by the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF’s) 11-strong fleet of Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic attack (EA) aircraft, the Chief of Air Force, Air Marshal Leo Davies, announced on 30 April.
Attaining IOC confirms the RAAF 6 Squadron’s ability to conduct limited force-level airborne electronic warfare (EW) for peacetime national tasking or limited low-level conflicts in the region. In this context, force-level EW involves moving well beyond simple self-protection of the host platform to the attack or defence of major assets or formations.
An interim benchmark scheduled for mid-2021 envisages the EA-18G’s capability developed so it can be taken into more contested conflicts and conduct operations at higher sortie rates in a single location, Group Captain Tim Churchill, Director of the Growler Transition Office, told Jane’s. Final Operational Capability (FOC), anticipated in mid-2022, will confirm the ability to undertake the same high operational tempo simultaneously in two locations.
The first two of 12 EA-18Gs landed at RAAF Amberley in Queensland in February 2017 and the final two arrived five months later. However, one aircraft was destroyed after a catastrophic engine failure while on exercises in the US in January 2018. Australia is the only country outside the US to operate the Growler. Along with the US Navy (USN) Growler force, the RAAF’s EA-18Gs utilises the AN/ALQ-99 tactical jamming system. Uniquely, Australian EA-18Gs also deploy the ASQ-228 ATFLIR electro-optical targeting pod, a requirement understood to have emerged from USN experience with Growler operations over Libya in 2011. The initial test firings by an RAAF Growler of an AGM-88B High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) and its successor, the AGM-88E Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile (AARGM), took place in the US in mid-2017. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
30 Apr 19. Coalition promises further investment into cyber security if re-elected. Older Australians, small businesses and national security assets will be the focus of a $156m cyber security investment from the Coalition government, if it is re-elected.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the funding would keep Australians safe while protecting businesses and the broader economy.
“As the risk of cyber attack increases, we need to ensure Australians are protected and our defence forces and capabilities continue to get the backing they need,” PM Morrison said.
“We will continue to take a proactive approach against cyber criminals at home and overseas, including scammers, fraudsters and those involved in child exploitation.”
Cyber crime costs the economy over $1bn a year, with families and small to medium-sized businesses often affected.
The funding the government would provide would be put towards the following:
- Invest $50m to create a Cyber Security National Workforce Growth Program to create the cyber workforce we will need in the decades to come;
- Invest $40m to establish a Countering Foreign Cyber Criminals capability within the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and drawing on the expertise of the Australian Federal Police to combat the increasingly sophisticated organised cyber crime gangs; and
- Invest $26m to support the Australian Cyber Security Centre to expand its assistance to the community in the fight against malicious cyber criminals and actors.
A $40m investment would also be made into Defence to grow its cyber warfare workforce, with the following strategy outlined by the government:
- Accelerate the creation of 230 positions for military cyber operations specialists in the ADF over the next four years, significantly enhancing existing capabilities;
- Build on our highly successful ADF Gap Year Program to create up to 100 new gap year positions each year that are focused on cyber and information warfare domains to encourage young Australians, particularly women, to embark on a cyber-related career; and
- Expand the Australian government cyber security ‘SPRINT’ teams to work with owners and operators of critical infrastructure to prepare against future cyber threats. (Source: Defence Connect)
27 Apr 19. The new electronic warfare tool cyber units will need. Industry leaders are warning that the targets U.S. Cyber Command will pursue in the future may not be connected to the internet or even accessible through the traditional, IP-based operations that the command has historically exploited in the past.
Instead, the military will need to expand the type of digital targets its high-end cyber warriors focus on.
“Many targets may not be connected to any external networks or may function on dedicated land networks, which does not present an insurmountable barrier but does require very extensive intelligence development to cross,” Austin Long, senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation, wrote in an essay published in the book “Bytes, Bombs and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations.”
“Other targets may only be accessible through radio frequency operations. The U.S. Air Force has publicly acknowledged using its Compass Call jamming aircraft to target a variety of networks for exploitation.”
Publicly, government and industry leaders have started discussing in recent months how to develop interfaces that would allow the military’s premier cyber forces to manipulate these targets.
“How do you create what we would call attack access manager, which Cyber Command is starting to talk [about] as an access ring [that] allows you different access paths into specific closed target sets,” Dean Clothier, director of cyber campaigns and resilience at Northrop Grumman, said April 11 during an event at Langley Air Force Base.
A Lockheed Martin executive also said that company is also having ongoing discussions regarding creating attack access managers that can “be delivered by multiple means.”
By creating various paths to get at closed targets, Clothier said “that’s where we really get into [electronic warfare]-enabled cyber.”
Other national security contractors also acknowledged this topic was coming up with increasing frequency.
Military leaders have debated the relationship between cyber warfare and electronic warfare, which is the manipulation of signals and frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. In a tactical sense, cyber consequences can be executed locally over radio frequency signals. This differs from the types of actions taken by traditional cyber means over IP networks.
Clothier, who most recently served as a colonel as cyberspace division chief for the Joint Staff’s communications directorate, said the Pentagon needs a common interface standard that allows the joint force to conduct cyber operations through electronic warfare platforms.
One example, he said, is the military needs to be able to conduct cyber operations through advanced active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars on either conventional platforms or unmanned aerial platforms via a common interface. These systems, which are typically mounted on the nose of a aircraft, would transform those planes into advanced electronic warfare and cyber platforms, which would be the “biggest gamechanger to come” to warfighters, Clothier said. (Source: Fifth Domain)
————————————————————————-
Spectra Group Plc
Spectra has a proven record of accomplishment – with over 15 years of experience in delivering secure communications and cybersecurity solutions for governments around the globe; elite militaries; and private enterprises of all sizes.
As a dynamic, agile, security accredited organisation, Spectra can leverage this experience to deliver Cyber Advisory and secure Hosted and Managed Solutions on time, to spec and on budget, ensuring compliance with industry standards and best practices.
Spectra’s SlingShot® is a unique low SWaP system that enables in-service U/VHF tactical radios to utilise Inmarsat’s commercial satellite network for BLOS COTM. Including omnidirectional antenna for the man, vehicle, maritime and aviation platforms, the tactical net can broadcast over 1000s miles between forward units and a rear HQ, no matter how or where the deployment. Unlike many BLOS options, SlingShot maintains full COTM (Communications On The Move) capability and low size and weight
On 23 November 2017, Spectra Group (UK) Ltd announced that it had recently been listed as a Top 100 Government SME Supplier for 2015-2016 by the UK Crown Commercial Services
Spectra’s CEO, Simon Davies, was awarded 2017 BATTLESPACE Businessman of the Year by BATTLESPACE magazine and is a finalist in the inaugural British Ex-Forces In Business Awards in the Innovator Of The Year category.
Founded in 2002, the Company is based in Hereford, UK and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
————————————————————————-