Sponsored by Spectra Group
https://tacs.at/Spectra
————————————————————————
08 Aug 18. How long is too long for a cyber operation? NSA has an idea. Research conducted by the National Security Agency has found that after five hours of cyber operations, performance drops and frustration begins to increase among staffers. Those longer missions caused roughly 10 percent more fatigue and frustration compared to operations that lasted less than five hours, Celeste Paul, a senior researcher at the NSA, said during the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. The reason? Extended operations are more tiring and mentally demanding, the research found. Hacking is stressful because it is complex, unpredictable and operates in a high-risk and high-reward environment, Paul said. In addition, NSA cyber operators are highly motivated and “they put success of the mission above all else, even themselves,” Paul said. Paul added that as frustration goes up, self-assessment of performance go down. “The only thing that is really affecting how well people think they are doing in their operation is how frustrated they are,” she said. If a simple break won’t help, staffers can eventually face “chronic and episodic stress conditions,” Paul said. The NSA conducted a survey of 126 cyber operators to better understand their stress levels. The agency will be posting the survey materials on its website. (Source: Fifth Domain)
08 Aug 18. DARPA wants to give commanders more CONTEXTS. “What happens next?”That’s a fundamental problem facing military leaders every day, often followed up by “what are the repercussions of a given action?” and “if our unit makes this move, how will that play out?”
These are the big picture dilemmas that defense technologists believe they can begin to answer. “We are not building tools that will predict the future,” said Steve Jameson, a program manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office. “But we are building tools that will give a range of likely outcomes, that will allow the user to explore their options and will give some explanation: Here’s why this particular approach will yield this outcome.” In tactical terms, such information would be worth its weight in gold. That’s why DARPA is mining for that gold through a $4.2m Phase 1 contract awarded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to BAE Systems. Formally known as the Causal Exploration of Complex Operational Environments, DARPA’s project seeks to assimilate wide swaths of previously inaccessible information in order to develop more complete intel and predict potential outcomes.
“It’s intended the underpin the relatively new doctrinal concept of operational design. That’s an activity aimed at developing deeper insight around an operational environment, understanding root causes of the scenario and developing a suitable operational approach,” said Jonathan Goldstein, Senior Principal Scientist, Autonomy, Controls, and Estimation group at BAE Systems. BAE’s proposed solution goes by the acronym CONTEXTS, short for Causal Modeling for Knowledge Transfer, Exploration, and Temporal Simulation.
Faster intel
Military leaders typically have plenty of sources of information, but they are often unable to ferret out useful intel in a timely way.
“There may be intelligence reports, government and NGO databases, statistics that can be analyzed. There are subject matter experts who may have knowledge,” Goldstein said. “The challenge is that new crises can pop up very fast, and you need to come up with a deep, nuanced understanding of the operational environment in a short amount of time.”
Scientists on this project want to pull together that diverse data in a graphical interface, an at-a-glance type system that would allow commanders to adjust key variables in order to see how outcomes might be affected.
“Each approach that you take alters the model. If you increase security in this area you can see how that affects other parts of the model. If you focus on the economy, you can see how that impacts the model,” Goldstein said. “It’s a way of considering the most appropriate approach.”
DARPA is looking to such “causal exploration” to enable military leaders to navigate their way through increasingly intricate situations.
“In the complexity of today’s operational environment, often it is not easy to tell what the military objective is that we should be targeting, or even whether there is a military objective,” Jameson said. “We can see situations where we have unanticipated outcomes. We attempt to solve a problem but we don’t address all the underlying causes, and so the problem comes back or we pick the wrong problem to address.”
In the emerging solution, algorithms would parse data looking for key indicators: The local level of violence, sentiment toward the government, services available to the citizenry. All this gets plotted and charted, with mathematical models representing the likely interdependencies between the variables.
“They would literally click on a node in the graph and press the arrow up to increase this variable or decrease that one. You get the outcomes in the form of a graph, or you can get the outcome in a narrative form saying this outcome was reached, or that outcome was not reached,” Goldstein said.
The exact form of the outputs is still under development, but the aim is to give commanders a view that is clearly legible and easy to digest. The key here is to present commanders with workable alternatives.
“The understanding that the commander gets from using the tool will be incredibly important,” Goldstein said. “The point is not just to suck in data and create a great model. It’s about making that information understandable, modifiable and transparent. The user really owns that model. That’s where the value lies.”
Causal exploration could help commanders to cut through the uncertainty, but that may not happen for some time yet. BAE’s four-year effort is slated to deliver in 2021.
(Source: C4ISR & Networks)
08 Aug 18. Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global leader in secure and intelligent cloud communications, today announced that it has partnered with Over.ai to incorporate its natural language voice Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform into Ribbon’s UCaaS and CPaaS offers. The partnership will initially focus on improving employee productivity by incorporating virtual assistant services into Unified Communications (UC) clients and enhancing customer engagement by streamlining contact center services. Ribbon chose Over.ai’s natural language AI voice platform for its ability to handle complex business interactions. The platform’s exceptional conversational capabilities enable participants to engage seamlessly in human to human-like conversation.
“Natural language AI creates an impactful new way to interact with business tools. Combining this innovative interaction model with our UC services makes it easy for end users to get more done. Customers can also reduce costs by leveraging AI as an intelligent first level of contact for sales or customer support, freeing up staff cycles for higher value engagements,” said Jeff Singman, VP Product, Kandy Business Solutions. “We’re pleased to be working with an innovation leader like Over.ai as we rapidly extend AI within our Kandy portfolio to enrich personal and business process interactions.”
Over.ai’s capabilities are being integrated into Kandy’s Live Support Wrapper, enabling customers to start their journey from a website, easily engage with an AI-based agent for frontline requests at any time and seamlessly escalate to a live agent if needed. Ribbon is also integrating Over.ai’s virtual assistant “Omega” into its UC solutions, making it easy for users to send emails, texts, set up meetings, take action items on conference calls, or get answers to common questions via ordinary voice interactions. Leveraging natural voice commands, users can instantly engage with co-workers and customers whether in the office or on the move.
“Voice AI is really about enablement and simplifying processes. Users can simply ask for the information they need or give task-related commands, and get results more quickly, easily and cost-effectively,” said Noam Fine, CEO of Over.ai. “These benefits translate to multiple use cases, whether by adopting virtual agents to extend a customer’s access to your sales or support team or improving staff productivity via task automation. We’re excited to integrate with Ribbon’s extensive portfolio of UC and CPaaS tools to deliver accurate and impactful results.”
About Over.ai
Over.ai is an artificially intelligent, voice-enabled platform that tackles complex tasks through listening, understanding and learning from its own environment in real time. By embracing natural language processing technology and allowing end users to engage naturally, we are creating a fundamental shift in human-computer interactions.
07 Aug 18. SitaWare Frontline to take on new role with Lithuanian Land Forces. The integration on the ‘Vilkas’ platforms sees Frontline equipping yet another advanced armoured vehicle. Systematic’s SitaWare Frontline command-and-control (C2) solution will be rolled out across the Lithuanian Land Forces’ fleet of future armoured vehicles. Lithuania is the first customer to order an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) variant of the Boxer and SitaWare Frontline will feature on all of the Land Forces’ platforms – designated Vilkas (‘Wolf’) in Lithuanian service. Its fleet will operate in four different configurations: squad, platoon, company commander, and command post.
“The SitaWare suite is already in service with the Lithuanian Land Forces, and the addition of Frontline to its latest IFVs will provide advanced C2 capabilities at the tip of the spear,” notes Merja Annala, President of Systematic Oy Finland, “Frontline addresses real-world challenges and has been designed by and for commanders operating in challenging environments, where a clear operational picture with rapid updates of friendly force tracking is absolutely essential. It has also been built with deployment and in-theatre management in mind.”
A total of 88 Vilkas platforms are being procured from the German-Dutch ARTEC industrial group, as well as trainers. The vehicles will be delivered through to 2021. Testing of the SitaWare Frontline solution on the Boxer platform has taken place with vehicle manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW). The ARTEC group consists of KMW and Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles on the German side, and Rheinmetall MAN Military Vehicles Nederland.
“Vilkas represents a step-change in the modernisation of the Lithuanian Armed forces. The introduction of new, advanced IFVs into service for the ‘Iron Wolf’ brigade will bring new capabilities to the Lithuanian Land Forces,” explained Land Forces spokesman, Captain Donatas Suchockis, “The integration of SitaWare Frontline on Vilkas will give commanders a comprehensive overview of the battlefield, from headquarters to tactical levels. Importantly, it also brings interoperability, which as a NATO country is key for us,” Capt Suchockis added.
SitaWare Frontline is capable of providing friendly force tracking information and an automatically updated situational awareness picture that features the disposition of forces, danger areas, points of interest, and intelligence on an enemy. Further functionality includes tactical chat, support for high performance mapping, and the ability to make and display plans directly on a touchscreen interface.
SitaWare Frontline is an operationally proven system and equips a number of armed forces, integrated on both vehicles and at forward-deployed infrastructure. The Danish Army is fitting all of its tactical land vehicles with SitaWare Frontline; among other users are the armed forces of the UAE, for whom the solution forms part of its Emirates Land Tactical System, and the Slovenian Army, who have recently selected the Boxer as the basis for two new mechanised infantry battlegroups.
07 Aug 18. JEDI cloud contract receives first protest. Oracle has filed the first protest of the Department of Defense’s $10bn Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, less than two weeks after the agency issued its final request for proposals. Oracle’s protest, filed with the Government Accountability Office Aug. 6, comes as little surprise, as many private sector companies have criticized the DoD’s intent to award JEDI to a single provider, handing whichever company is awarded the contract a significant share of the defense cloud market. But Pentagon officials have been adamant that the contract is still designed for competition and will not automatically be awarded to one of the few cloud behemoths that can currently meet all capabilities, such as Amazon Web Services. Officials have also stated that a single award still remains the best method for achieving the DoD’s desired outcome. A GAO decision on the protest is due Nov. 14, nearly a month after the bidding deadline for the contract closes on Sept. 17. Washington Technology first reported the protest. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Federal Times)
07 Aug 18. Here’s a look at the Army’s new enterprise cloud strategy. The Army, after an intense public focus on the tactical network, is beginning to set its sights on the enterprise network, specifically enterprise cloud. The Army’s CIO/G-6 office has been working to update its cloud strategy, as the last strategy was published in 2015. One of the reasons for the update, according to Thomas Sasala, director of operations and architecture and chief data officer within the CIO/G6, is a lot has changed in the private sector in terms of new technologies and solutions. Sasala was presenting the enterprise cloud strategy to members of industry during an Aug. 1 tactical cloud industry day in Raleigh, N.C. At a top level, Sasala explained the Army is moving toward a hybrid cloud environment, noting no one solution will meet all the requirements. Moreover, there are three computing environments established in the strategy: shared commercial cloud environment off-premises; shared enterprise data center environment; and an “antique” environment, which is what the service is now referring to as its legacy environment. Within that vein, Sasala said the Army has acknowledged there are services they don’t want to bring forward but can’t get rid of right now. DoD solutions, such as milCloud 2.0, will be used for sensitive apps.
Key features of the cloud architecture — secure accessible, resilient, survivable, elastic, dynamic, on-demand, AI-ready, automated and self service — are what bridge the enterprise environment to the tactical, Sasala said. Goals and objectives of the cloud strategy listed by the Army include meeting commander’s requirements in a timely manner; increasing survivability, resiliency and security of mission data and services; agile, flexible and responsive IT environment; decrease in total cost of IT enterprise operations in support of the war fighter; fully aligning tactical and non-tactical computing infrastructure to create a seamless environment for users; and reduction of labor intensive manual processes through automation. On the last point, Sasala said the money saved for cloud and shared computers is getting the Army out of the business of what he referred to as mundane IT operations and automating those services to allow operators to get back to operating and administrators doing administrative work as opposed to patching. Regarding the enterprise computing environment, officials noted the Army needs an environment that transforms application hosting and delivery of IT resources for more effective decision-making and mission outcomes; that will host mission systems, applications, services and data, accessible to enterprise and forward-deployed users; that will leverage disruptive technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence and support data analytics for the war fighter; that mitigates capital investments and provides an elastic capability that bridges tactical and non-tactical users. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
07 Aug 18. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected BAE Systems to develop data-driven, cyber-hunting tools that detect and analyze cyber threats to help protect extremely large enterprise networks. The contract for Phase 1, 2, and 3 of the program is valued at approximately $5.2m. Because most current tools do not offer the scale and processing speed needed to adequately defend enterprise networks, the goal of DARPA’s Cyber-Hunting at Scale (CHASE) program is to develop, demonstrate, and evaluate new, automated cyber-defense tools for use within and across these types of networks. BAE Systems’ unique solution, which combines advanced machine learning and cyber-attack modeling, intends to address this critical need by automatically detecting and defeating advanced cyber threats that could currently go undetected. The result could be better-defended commercial networks, using existing storage and existing resources. The technology could also be used to help protect government and military networks.
“Today, advanced cyber attacks within many enterprise networks go entirely unnoticed among an overwhelming amount of network data, or they require intensive manual analysis by expert teams,” said Anne Taylor, product line director for the Cyber Technology group at BAE Systems. “Our technology aims to alleviate resource constraints to actively hunt for cyber threats that evade security measures, enhancing the collective cyber defense of these networks.”
BAE Systems’ efforts on the CHASE program builds on previous company work in real-time, cyber-defense based anomaly detection, evidence-driven decision making, and related techniques for DARPA, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Navy. The company’s subcontractors and research partners on the program include Digital Operatives, Dr. Ruslan Salakhutdinov from Carnegie Mellon University, and Dr. Farshad Khorrami and team from New York University. BAE Systems’ work for the program will be performed in Arlington, Virginia.(Source: BUSINESS WIRE)
07 Aug 18. U.S. Army Boosts Electronic Warfare Numbers, Training, Role. The Army is giving its electronic warfare force more troops, more training, and a more prominent role in combat headquarters, senior officers said here Thursday, pushing back on criticisms that the service neglects EW even as Russia and China pull ahead.
- The number of EW troops has increased from 813 (both officers and enlisted)in 2015 to 940 today and growing. While just a fraction of the formidable Russian EW force, that’s still a 15 percent increase in three years, remarkable at a time when the Army as a whole shrunk by four percent. What’s more, it reverses a stark decline in previous years when the Army decided to get rid of EW specialists because it no longer needed to jam radio-controlled roadside bombs in Iraq.
- EW training is being expanded. All new Army electronic warfare officers (EWO) will start with the same 14-month course as cyber operations officers, but the EWOs will then get an additional three months of training specifically in electronic warfare. Enlisted EW specialist training will probably quadruple in length from nine weeks to 36, equal in length to the new enlisted cyber operator course.
- EW officers will lead new combined cyber/EW cells on Army headquarters staffs at every echelon from brigade to division, corps, and regional Army Service Component Command. Many units had some form of Cyber/Electromagnetic Activity staff before, but these CEMA cells are now being enlarged, standardized, and put without exception under leaders drawn from the EW force.
Now, even when complete, these reforms won’t fix all the Army’s problems, much of which comes down to hardware. The service is racing to field the kind of robust communications network that can get orders and intelligence through in the face of high-end jamming. It’s still years away from fielding the kind of high-powered, long-range offensive radio jammers that the Russians put to lethal effect in Ukraine, although it has been testing shorter-ranged systems in Europe. And there’s no clear timeline to develop a drone-mounted offensive jammer that would free the Army from its current reliance on a small number of manned aircraft from other services, particularly Navy EA-18G Growlers and Air Force EC-130H Compass Calls. Also unnerving to some electronic warriors is how their specialty is being merged into the larger and better-funded cyber branch. But that merger, Army leaders say, is about elevating electronic warfare, not subsuming it. The goal, they say, is integrating electronic warfare with cyber warfare, information operations, and other high-tech functions in a new kind of electromagnetic combined arms as essential to 21st century warfare as Panzers, Stukas, and the radio were to the German blitzkrieg. While cyber warriors can hack landline networks on their own, they need signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic warfare to help them find and penetrate wireless networks. (Fast-moving tactical units rely on wifi for command, control, and communications because they can’t be tied to fiber optic cables). And if cyber forces can’t hack the enemy by messing with their data, the digital 1s and 0s, it’s up to electronic warfare to spoof enemy sensors and jam their communications by physically transmitting radio-frequency signals. Cyber, EW, and signals are far stronger together than apart.
“It’s Not Just Cyber”: Uniting The Tribes
“They’re no longer tribal rivals, we’re mission partners,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogartytold a cyber and networks conference at the Association of the US Army on Thursday. Electronic warfare and cyber warfare, signals (communications) and signals intelligence, psychological operations and information operations, he said, “everyone came to the same conclusion that we had to work together, and that if you stood alone, frankly, you were just going to become irrelevant.”
Other leaders at the conference made similar points, but Fogarty’s particularly important because he’s both the former head of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Ga. and the new chief of Army Cyber Command(ARCYBER). But while “cyber” was the hot buzzword to slap on everything a few years ago, those names don’t reflect the full scope of what those organizations do, including electronic warfare, and they need to change.
“We’ve got to be careful about boxing ourselves in by the term cyber,” Fogarty told the conference. “It’s not just about cyber. It’s not just about cyber.”
“In three years or four years or five years from now, we’ll no longer be called Army Cyber Command,” he went on. “We’re going to something else that actually reflects the totality of the capabilities,” perhaps some variation on “Army Information Warfare.”
As a first step to that change, Fogarty is meeting all this week at his Fort Belvoir, Va. headquarters with leaders from multiple specialties — not only cyber but electronic warfare, information operations, and the signal corps — to refine Cyber Command’s mission statement and priorities. There’s another aspect to this conceptual challenge: developing an offensive mindset. The Army’s efforts so far have focused, understandably, on defending its networks from hacking and jamming. Now the service wants to take the offensive in both cyberspace and over the airwaves of the radio-frequency spectrum. In fact, Fogarty argued, as our potential adversaries catch up to us technologically, the silver lining is they’re making themselves more vulnerable to high-tech means of attack.
“You’re going to hack and jam us?” the Russians might well retort. “You and what army?”
The answer is the new cyber/electronic warfare force the US Army is building up. And that corps is very different than the centralized strategic force the military has created for pure cyber warfare, in which defensive and, even more so, offensive teams are closely controlled by high-level strategic like Fort Meade, home of the NSA. By contrast, the Army is creating a decentralized structure for combined cyber/electronic warfare at the tactical level — and at every echelon from brigade to theater, electronic warfare officers will be in the lead.
Electronic Warriors In The Lead
What does it take to fight and win the invisible war of electrons? A lot more than the Army initially thought. Back in 2016, after years focusing on strategic cyber forces, the Army started exploring what it then called Cyber Support to Corps and Below (CSCB), which was later renamed Cyber/Electromagnetic Activity (CEMA) Support to include electronic warfare and other functions. The initial plan was to deploy a team of four cyber specialists to a brigade conducting war games at Combat Training Centers. It quickly became clear a much larger contingent was required to set up the necessary infrastructure for training, let alone conduct effective operations. Even with more people in place, however, there was no common database to plan these operations. That’s particularly problematic in highly technical operations that require extensive coordination. Cyber attacks need electronic warfare to transmit their malware into the enemy network; electronic warriors need signals intelligence (SIGINT) to help them hone in on the enemy transmissions; SIGINT and the signals corps needs EW to avoidjamming certain frequencies because we need to use them to spy on the enemy or for our own communications.
Officers from the different specialties end up kludging together the technical details at the last minute. That’s not good enough, said Fogarty: “We can do better than Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint in the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) 30 minutes before an operation.”
The technical piece of the solution is the Electronic Warfare Planning & Management Tool. EWPMT began life purely as an aid to EW planners but took on spectrum management and signals intelligence functions as well. An early version, Raytheon’s Ravenclaw, has been deployed to Europe. The human piece is new and larger CEMA cells at multiple echelons, with more personnel at lower levels closer to the fight:
- Brigade-level cells will double in size from five personnel to 10, gaining a second EW officer, three additional enlisted EW specialists, and, for the first time, a cyber operations officer.
- Division cells will grow from five to nine, adding EW enlisted and a cyber officer.
- Corps cells will grow from six to eight.
- Army Service Component Commands (ASCCs), part of regional combatant commands (COCOMs), have no standard structure today but will have a CEMA cell of seven under the new plan.
A crucial detail: At every echelon, the leader of the CEMA cell will be an electronic warfare officer, taking advantage of EWO’s additional training in how to combine cyber and EW.
Now, these headquarters personnel are primarily planners and coordinators, not frontline cyber/electromagnetic combatants. Army officials said the actual hackers and jammers will come mostly from
- new Electronic Warfare Platoons to be created in each brigade’s Military Intelligence Company (MICO);
- new Electronic Warfare Companies in each Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade; and
- 45-person Expeditionary CEMA Teams, two of which currently exist. Both ECTs are trained and administered by the Army’s central Cyber Warfare Support Battalion (CWSB), but they’re attached as needed to combat brigades to conduct operations. The Army has said elsewhere the ECTs may become division and/or corps assets (presumably, once there are enough of them to go around).
In addition, said ARCYBER’s Brig. Gen. William Hartman, brigade commanders will be able to reach back over Army networks to experts in the US. They’ll also have legal authorities to take action in cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum, he said, including authorities previously reserved to “Army Cyber [Command] or a Joint Force Headquarters.”
But humans need special equipment, like computers and jammers, to actually do anything in the cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum, just as they need planes to fly in the air or ships to sail the sea. (Coordinating all these forces is the aim of the emerging doctrine known as Multi-Domain Operations). The Army is making progress on EW gear, but it’s still a long road.
Gearing Up, Eventually
Right now, the Army doesn’t have a lot of cyber or electronic warfare gear for frontline units. “The equipment we brought to JRTC (the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La.) was really built to fight the last war,’ said Brig. Gen. Hartman. “It was large, it wasn’t mobile, it was built to sit on a FOB (Forward Operating Base). It wasn’t built to maneuver with a brigade combat team.”
That required some field modifications and quick some commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) additions. The range of cyber/EW sensors, for instance, went from 900 meters to five kilometers. In such systems, agility and adaptability are more important than raw power, several senior officers said, because the threat keeps changing, driven by Moore’s Law and Russo-Chinese ingenuity. To meet that challenge, said Raytheon’s information operations director, Frank Pietryka, EW technology has evolved away from traditional brute-force hardware with a few hardwired functions: point at the enemy, dial in the frequencies they’re using, and blast out radio waves to jam them. Today’s software-driven systems, he said, can collect signals intelligence (SIGINT), detecting and analyzing enemy signals, and then transmit sophisticated jamming signals to interfere with those signals in subtle ways.
“We shouldn’t have a bespoke solution for everything,” said Lt. Gen. Fogarty. For example, in 17 years of fighting terrorists and insurgents, the main mission of electronic warfare has been jamming radio-controlled roadside bombs (RCIEDS). But against a high-tech, heavily armed adversary, he said, the urgent need might be to jam the fuses on anti-tank missiles and artillery shells, or to attack the enemy’s command networks and GPS-equivalents. (While he didn’t name them, he’s presumably thinking of Russia’s GLONASS and China’s Beidou).
The Army is currently testing a range of relatively lightweight, low-power, and short-range gear in Europe, much of it small to be carried by a single soldier. In the future, however, it plans on a more powerful truck-mounted system called TLIS — Terrestrial Layer Intelligence System, which combines SIGINT and EW — and some kind of airborne jammer, probably on a drone. (Jammers send out powerful energy pulses that make them easy targets, especially flying jammers that can’t hide in the terrain, so an expendable platform is preferable to a manned one). Fogarty also believes the Army should invest heavily in decoys, pulsing out false signals to draw the enemy’s precision weapons away from our troops. Wielding these new tools effectively will require new technical learning and tactical creativity from Army commanders. Today, all too often, infantry, tank, artillery, and aviation (helicopter) officers see networks as something their communications staff should handle in the back room, out of sight, jabbering to each other in geeky “dolphin speak” while the real men actually fight with actual weapons. But now the Army is trying to use the network itself as a weapon. That means commanders need to understand it, not as well as technical specialists do, but at least well enough to employ it effectively.
“The network is a weapons platform,” said Brig. Gen. Joseph McGee, former deputy commander of ARCYBER and ow director of the Army’s Talent Management Task Force. “Most maneuver leaders understand the weapons platforms that they’re employing: They understand the limits and constraints of an Apache helicopter or an Abrams tank. I’m not sure we’ve dedicated enough time and effort to help the maneuver leaders understand the network.“ (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Breaking Defense)
04 Aug 18. Software-defined networks drive IT modernization. Today’s battlespace is defined by a reliance on networks and, as a result, military leaders say they are looking for technologies that give them simpler, more flexible solutions for connecting soldiers and enabling communications. One key to network modernization is the rise of software-defined networking (SDN). By shifting network operations to the software environment, SDN makes it easier to stand up and configure networks, and allows for a more flexible approach to network management.
“The legacy infrastructure is device-dependent, hardware-heavy, and has multiple firewalls, multiple boundaries,” Army Lt. Gen. Alan R. Lynn, the previous commander of DoD Information Networks, said at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association’s (AFCEA) Defensive Cyber Operations Symposium. “In the future, what we see is a software-defined network that kind of encrypts and decrypts at the endpoint so that it can ride essentially any network that’s available, any untrusted network.”
Emerging solutions
The Joint Service Provider, a subcomponent of the Defense Information Systems Agency, released a request for information last fall for exactly these kind of networking solutions, which it said promised to “simplify, flatten and optimize the network topology, design and operations through use of virtualization, routing and orchestration techniques.”
Other elements of the military are moving in a similar direction. The Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Network and Enterprise Services (CANES), for instance, delivers network services nimbly through a virtualized infrastructure.
The Navy clearly intends to follow the idea further. Addressing the service’s annual Forecast to Industry event last fall, DISA official Jessie Showers said as much.
“Come in and show us how we can use SDN in DoD operations,” he told the crowd. He added that a global software-based network — based at least in part on commercial offerings — could be in play by 2023. “We will accomplish this by utilizing and leveraging capabilities that are already present around the globe,” he said.
DISA awarded a task order enlisting Leidos and its partner AT&T to help it take the first steps toward transforming the Department of Defense Information Network to a software-defined network.
Tangible outcomes
Along similar lines, Army leaders say it is already seeing tangible outcomes from a migration to software-based networking.
Consider, the recent Army evaluation of the Tactical Communications Node-Lite and Network Operations and Security Center-Lite systems, which leaders held in July 2017 at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Not only were both deemed “suitable, survivable and effective,” said Paul Mehney, spokesman for Program Executive Office Command Control Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). In addition, both saw significant reductions in size, weight and power, such that they can now be sling-loaded by a helicopter across the battlefield or rolled onto a C130 aircraft, providing significantly increased agility and operational flexibility.
“In a large part, these [size, weight and power] reductions were made possible through the software virtualization of hardware components,” Mehney said.
Beyond such logistical considerations, software-defined networking offers the military the ability to adapt readily to changing circumstances. Because so much of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise is dependent on networks, a software-based approach ensures connectivity will be there where it is needed.
“When you go to a software-defined network, you have a network that is adaptable,” said Mike Leff, vice president for global defense at AT&T Public Sector. “You can virtualize functions not based on where the hardware is, but where the need is. It’s a network-on-demand capability.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
04 Aug 18. To improve military networks, the US Army looks to commercial solutions. In late 2017 Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman, described the Army’s networks as “a critical enabler of readiness and lethality.” As such, an upcoming review of all Army networks “will assist the Army in proactively integrating, aligning and reforming our IT portfolios to ensure infrastructure, programs, weapons and other systems are prepared to adapt.”
A linchpin of the review — and of most military network upgrades presently under consideration — is a reliance on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.
“We’ve become very reliant on the capability that industry provides,” said Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of networks, services and strategy, in the office of the Army’s CIO. “In many cases we had systems that came to us that were way too complex for soldiers to understand and for leaders to manage.”
From cybersecurity to internet of things implementations, a range of IT modernization efforts depend on the military having access to robust, modern networks. Defense leaders and industry experts say there are good reasons why the military would look to the commercial side as the starting point for such solutions. Over the past decade carrier service providers have invested more than $300bn in modernizing their network infrastructure, according to CTIA – The Wireless Association. The Department of Defense would have to spend billions just to reach the same level of proficiency, and it is unlikely DoD could sustain such an effort for the long haul either in terms of spending or staffing.
“If you can take advantage of commercial investment, you have a global services backbone that provides a network-on-demand capability, a more intelligent network with bandwidth that could be sized dynamically up and down,” said Mike Leff, vice president for global defense at AT&T Public Sector. Military leaders say they are in fact looking to commercial solutions as the first line of defense in their quest for sturdier, more agile network capabilities. Take for instance Army’s Program Executive Office Command Control Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). That office is taking what it calls a “find-try-adapt-buy” approach to the acquisition of networking assets.
“Find and try” means the Army will continually field-test available solutions for military application, while “adapt and buy” suggests the Army will then acquire and adapt the best of these solutions to meet unique military challenges, said Paul Mehney, spokesman for PEO C3T.
“This approach to mission command network modernization will allow rapid insertion of new technology, by leveraging commercial systems not specifically designed to exact military-grade standards,” he said.
This commercial-first message was broadcast clearly at last fall’s annual MILCOM conference hosted by AFCEA. “Your No. 1 mission is to buy, not make,” said Lt. Col. Shermoan Daiyaan, product manager for tactical mission command within PEO C3T. Daiyaan pointed to the emerging command post computing environment as one example of commercial solutions in action. “Our organization bought a [commercial off-the-shelf] solution, we’re adapting it to make sure it does everything we need it to do in the Army and then we’re going to field it,” Daiyaan said. Experts say that in following the lead of commercial providers, the military can at last break out of the siloed, overly prescriptive solutions that have for decades characterized defense networking infrastructure.
“DoD needs the flexibility to move and maneuver quickly,” Leff said. “To do that you have to have a network that adapts rapidly to the actual threat environment. Simply put, commercial networks are intrinsically faster and more resilient, and have much greater reach and capability.” (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
04 Aug 18. The internet of battlefield things will depend on modernized networks. Military planners envision a future battlefield defined by the internet of things, one in which smart devices, soldier-worn sensors and unmanned aircraft produce a nonstop torrent of actionable data. In this near-future war space, “current, commonly available, interconnected ‘things’ will exist in the battlefield and be increasingly intelligent, obfuscated, and pervasive,” according to Army documents.
Experts, however, put a caveat on that vision. The IoT landscape cannot come to fruition without robust, modernized networks. The promised wellspring of new ISR data “requires connectivity and security,” said Mike Leff, vice president for global defense at AT&T Public Sector. “You need a robust network to give you that competitive advantage on the battlefield.”
Envisioning battlefield IoT
Military leaders back this assessment. Eager as they are to cull ISR data from an IoT-rich environment, they say they need a modernized network infrastructure to support that capability. In October 2017, for instance, the Army announced it had selected the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to lead a $25m initiative to develop the scientific foundations of a next-generation internet of battlefield things (IoBT). In the announcement, Army leaders stressed the need for a robust network to make connected devices truly battle-worthy. IoBT must appropriately leverage all networks — blue, gray and red, said Stephen Russell, the chief for the Army Research Lab’s battlefield information processing branch. In this construct, blue networks are secure and military-owned; gray networks are often civilian networks with uncertain trustworthiness; and red networks are adversarial networks.
Russell stressed that the effort to exploit the unique capabilities of a networked battlefield will be an interdisciplinary problem that brings together researchers in cyber-physical computing, information theory, security, formal methods, machine learning, networking, control and cognitive science, among other disciplines.
The Navy has taken a similar read on emerging IoT. A June 2017 document notes that as connected devices are deployed more widely, availability becomes an increasing concern. The networks carrying medical data, for instance, “should never go down — even for a second. And if they do, we need to be able to get them back up and running quickly.”
Some have expressed concern that present military networks don’t meet this standard. IoT devices that run without firewalls or antivirus protection could easily be compromised on current networks, Marine Corps Maj. Scott Cuomo told an IoT summit hosted by the AFCEA DC Chapter.
Looking forward
With their limited bandwidth, today’s military networks may not be able to support the emerging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability that might be supported by widespread IoT deployments. The likelihood of urban combat where bandwidth is in greater demand could amplify the problem, Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kawada said during a panel at the MilCom conference in October 2017.
At the same time, the rise of IoT brings with it significant opportunity, not just in terms of ISR but also in support of logistics.
“When you are deploying expeditionary forces and moving stuff from one part of the world to the other, IoT offers the chance to have total visibility across that supply chain,” Leff said.
To take advantage of that opportunity, military leaders say they will need networks robust enough to handle the bandwidth demands and flexible enough to configure as needed in rapidly changing circumstances.
(Source: C4ISR & Networks)
02 Aug 18. Rohde & Schwarz Increases its Commitment to Cybersecurity and Network Security With LANCOM Systems. The Rohde & Schwarz technology group and network infrastructure manufacturer LANCOM Systems are joining forces to lay the foundation for continued, sustainable and above-average growth. Rohde & Schwarz will increase its interest in LANCOM to 100 percent. Together with its subsidiary Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity GmbH, the group is forging ahead with its strategy of becoming Europe’s largest provider of network and cybersecurity solutions. Rohde & Schwarz has held a majority interest in LANCOM since November 2016. To consolidate the growth strategy of both companies, the Munich-based technology group is now increasing its interest in Germany’s leading manufacturer of network infrastructure solutions for business and the public sector to 100 percent. LANCOM Systems will operate as an independent subsidiary within the group.
LANCOM founder Ralf Koenzen and Co-Managing Director Stefan Herrlich will continue to run LANCOM’s business and assume additional responsibilities within the group. Ralf Koenzen will head the newly founded Networks & Cybersecurity Division at Rohde & Schwarz, which will also integrate Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity. Stefan Herrlich will become a member of the supervisory board of Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity GmbH. Rohde & Schwarz has been active in the field of IT security for over 20 years and since 2016 has been putting together a diverse and innovative portfolio for information and network security in this subsidiary.
“The increased commitment of Rohde & Schwarz opens up further outstanding growth opportunities for LANCOM. We will use joint innovations to open up new markets and press ahead with the internationalization of our business,” explains LANCOM founder and Managing Director Ralf Koenzen. “We are pleased to enter this long-term commitment with LANCOM with its great track record of success,” says Bosco Novak, member of Rohde & Schwarz corporate management and supervisory board member of Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity GmbH. “In just a very short time, the partnership has resulted in highly exciting developments that we will benefit from even more in the future. In the age of Industry 4.0, we are also leading the way in securing networked infrastructures.”
The protection of digital communications and data plays an increasingly important role in times of global networking. Risks for companies, government authorities and critical infrastructures are rising dramatically. Accordingly, Rohde & Schwarz is increasingly committed to this future market as a trustworthy European supplier. The transfer of the shares is subject to the approval of the German Federal Cartel Office. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. (Source: ASD Network)
02 Aug 18. Committed to improving emergency response times, Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) has partnered with RapidSOS to integrate its Next-Generation 911 (NG911) Clearinghouse technology into its Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) products. This technology gives first responders a more accurate location of distressed callers using smartphones and other internet-enabled devices, thereby improving public safety response times and potentially saving more lives.
RapidSOS is an emergency technology company dedicated to improving outcomes of emergency situations by leveraging the “internet of things (IOT).” Its NG911 Clearinghouse technology allows emergency call centers, known as public-safety answering points (PSAPs), access to advanced location information and other data from smart devices such as phones, wearables, connected cars and homes, as well as popular apps for navigation and transportation services.
“We believe that providing public safety dispatchers and first responders with better, richer data from personal devices will help save more lives,” said Nathan Daniels, program manager, first responder solutions, Northrop Grumman. “The integration of the NG911 Clearinghouse with our emergency response portfolio will greatly benefit our customers and prevent unnecessary difficulties locating callers.”
Over the past two decades, the number of people using smartphones and other internet-enabled devices has grown exponentially. Most of these devices contain sophisticated geolocation technology, which, if accessible to emergency services, can greatly reduce the time it takes to respond to a user in distress.
“RapidSOS is dedicated to providing public safety agencies with life-saving information integrated into their existing workflows and dashboards,” said Jeff Robertson, general manager of public safety, RapidSOS. “This partnership with Northrop Grumman will put advanced emergency information in the hands of 9-1-1 telecommunicators and first responders, enabling more efficient and better prepared emergency response.”
As an industry leader in public safety systems, Northrop Grumman is committed to providing the most advanced emergency management command, control and communications solutions to the First Responder Community. Some of the largest police, fire, ambulance and security services in the U.S. and around the world trust and depend on Northrop Grumman’s CommandPoint® CAD and other first responder products, which is why the company is dedicated to its continual improvement. Partnering with IOT companies and the public safety community, RapidSOS provides a rich data link to public safety via the NG911 Clearinghouse – sending lifesaving data to aid in emergency response. NG911 Clearinghouse is a free service to public safety, and is integrated with all major vendors of 9-1-1 call-taking, dispatching and mapping software. Learn more about RapidSOS: rapidsos.com.
————————————————————————-
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.
————————————————————————-