April 18, 2024 | International, Security
Russian APT Deploys New 'Kapeka' Backdoor in Eastern European Attacks
A new stealthy backdoor malware called Kapeka, likely created by Russia's APT group Sandworm, has been targeting Eastern Europe.
November 23, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security
CIA awards intel community’s cloud contract to several vendors
WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has awarded its new multivendor cloud contract to a few companies, the spy organization confirmed Friday.
Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, IBM and Oracle all confirmed to C4ISRNET they had been awarded the CIA's Commercial Cloud Enterprise contract, which will serve as the intelligence community's cloud environment. NextGov, which first broke the news, reported Google as an additional winner.
The CIA declined to confirm specific vendors to C4ISRNET.
“We are excited to work with the multiple industry partners awarded the Intelligence Community (IC) Commercial Cloud Enterprise (C2E) Cloud Service Provider (CSP) contract and look forward to utilizing, alongside our IC colleagues, the expanded cloud capabilities resulting from this diversified partnership,” CIA spokesperson Chelsea Robinson said.
The CIA declined to provide the contract value, though contract documents obtained by NextGov in 2019 stated it could be valued in the “tens of billions.” The draft request for proposals, released in February 2020 and obtained by C4ISRNET, was considering a 15-year performance period, a five-year base and two five-year options.
The C2E contract is a follow-on award to the intel community's Commercial Cloud Services contact. AWS was the sole provider for that contract, which was worth $600 million.
“We are honored to continue to support the intelligence community as they expand their transformational use of cloud computing. Together, we're building innovative solutions across all classification levels that deliver operational excellence and allow for missions to be performed faster and more securely,” an AWS spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Microsoft, which won the Defense Department's single-award, controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, said the company was “eager” to work with the intel community.
“We applaud the intelligence community in advancing its cloud strategy to the next phase in order to take advantage of the latest commercially available cloud technologies,” the AWS spokesperson said.
Jay Bellisimo, IBM's general manager for the U.S. public and federal market, said that the company “is proud to further its collaboration with the U.S. federal government.”
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July 31, 2018 | International, C4ISR
DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy program tests the scouting software of tomorrow’s wars
By: Kelsey Atherton Every map is an outdated map. Buildings change, people relocate, and what was accurate a decade ago may mean nothing to someone on patrol today. Which is one reason the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is pursuing Fast Lightweight Autonomy, a program designed to teach drones to effortlessly scout and map unfamiliar locations, without the help of GPS or external guidance tools, so that the military can rely on the freshest scouting information possible. For Phase II of the program, DARPA split the task into three parts. One team worked on better flight outdoors in a natural environment at full speed. Another team pursued drone flight in an urban environment, with the drone building a semantic map of the cars and buildings it encountered, while a third team focused on navigating indoors. Taken together, the teams are demonstrating in part the way robots can do what humans do when in unfamiliar terrain, but then speed it up and transmit that information back to humans following behind. First and foremost are the military applications. If DARPA's program results in workable code and sensors, future missions equipped with quadcopters could let the robots scout a contested area before putting any humans at risk. And that area could include dense woods, civilian-lined streets in an area that's seen some insurgent action, or even shelled-out buildings that may be hiding snipers or other traps. The robot explores and informs, and then the humans can follow afterwards, with fresh information loaded onto their tablets and guiding their movements. There are applications for the technology beyond a shooting war. Rescue workers could use drones based on this software to see if a damaged building is safe enough to send rescuers into, or to see if there are even people alive inside who might need rescuing. Drones that can fly quickly through forests could seek out lost hikers, shifting the human energy from search to rescue. Some of this, notes FLA program manager Jean-Charles Ledé, could be done at present by skilled human pilots, the kind that race drones with first-person view goggles. But, says Ledé, “We don't want to deploy a world-class FPV racer with every search and rescue team.” Drones that can navigate by software alone reduce the skill needed to manage the flying robots. In a pinch, the algorithm is a substitute for expertise, and far more scalable a solution. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2018/07/30/darpas-fast-lightweight-autonomy-program-tests-the-scouting-software-of-tomorrows-wars/
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July 11, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Elbit announces $114 million sale of patrol aircraft in Asia
The unnamed customer could be Philippines, which has long searched for such planes on the global market.