February 29, 2024 | International, Land
Turkey F-16 sale to proceed after Senate vote
The Senate overwhelmingly rejected a resolution to block the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey after Ankara approved Sweden's NATO accession.
January 23, 2019 | International, C4ISR
An Air Force radio that can run for a week in the sun
By: Adam Stone
The Pentagon has long been looking for a way out from under its tradition of massive, multi-year, multi-billion-dollar projects. With the rapid pace of technological development, military leaders have sought tools and strategies for more rapid acquisitions.
There's the Defense Innovation Unit, or DIUx, a Defense effort to make faster use of emerging technologies. Some organizations have also turned to contractual tools such as the OTA, or other transaction authority, as a means to accelerate the technology buying process.
Recently, technicians at McConnell Air Force Base proved that homegrown ingenuity can make a difference, too. Workers there used a local partnership and a modest development effort to craft a portable, solar-powered communications system.
“The military needs to be ready to go anywhere and solar enables that,” said Tech. Sgt. Clayton Allen of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing.
As a non-commissioned officer in charge of the wing's XPX innovation team, Allen led the effort to shrink down the standard communications package and make it self-sustaining. The three-man team got the job done in about 400 hours, working in cooperation with Wichita State University's GoCreate rapid-innovation lab.
“We took it from a box the size of a small room and made it something you can drag behind you like luggage, weighing about 150 pounds,” he said.
An expeditionary force typically might have to spend a couple of days setting up its communications operation. The newly-developed unit works right out of the box and costs about $12,000 less, the team said. As a solar-power unit, it also does not rely on the presence of a generator, making it easier to deploy in a wider range of circumstances.
“It is completely self-sustainable, powered by solar power, and the solar panel can extend the [battery life] out almost indefinitely,” Senior Airman Aaron Walls, an XPX innovation team member, said in an Air Force news release.
Full article: https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2019/01/23/an-air-force-radio-that-can-run-for-a-week-in-the-sun
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September 14, 2018 | International, C4ISR
Really old computer viruses are still infecting new machines
By: Justin Lynch The biggest cyber threats governments and businesses face may not be the cutting edge hack from China, but a 10-year-old virus that infects a little-used computer. Some of the most well-known viruses from the past decade are still infecting machines despite their well-documented nature, according to cyber research firms. Some viruses, such as WannaCry and Conficker, are still spreading, Sean Sullivan, a security adviser at F-Secure told Fifth Domain. “It costs hackers nothing to keep using them,” Sullivan said. These known vulnerabilities are still effective because older machines do not receive patches for updates, which can then infect an entire network. Hackers often bundle known hacks together because it increases their success rate with no downside, Sullivan said. “Nothing is going to be 100 percent patched across organizations,” Sullivan, said. He described a network administrator's role as “triage.” The 2017 WannaCry hack infected users in more than 150 countries and had an economic impact of anywhere from $4 billion to $8 billion. Although progress has been made to patch computers, WannaCry is still a top malware threat for customers, F-Stream said in a September report. The Conficker hack targeted Windows systems and was first launched in 2008. It is reported to have cost as much as $9 billion in damage. But much work remains. More than two-billion devices have not been patched to defend against BlueBorne, a Bluetooth vulnerability that allows an attacker to take over devices, according to the cyber protection company Armis. The devices are still vulnerable because they have not been updated or because an update does not exist, according to the company. “Whether they're brought in by employees and contractors, or by guests using enterprise networks for temporary connectivity, these devices can expose enterprises to significant risks,” wrote Ben Seri, the vice president of research at Armis. A previous version of this article said that two million devices have not been patched to defend against BlueBorne. It is two billion. https://www.fifthdomain.com/industry/2018/09/13/really-old-computer-viruses-are-still-infecting-new-machines
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December 3, 2021 | International, Aerospace
Department of Defense orders $316 million more in anti-jam GPS devices
The contract is part of the military's efforts to get M-Code ready GPS receivers into the hands of troops.