May 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
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October 2, 2018 | International, C4ISR
Happy new (fiscal) year! Feds want more electronic warfare and cybersecurity tools
By: Justin Lynch
As the new federal fiscal year begins, cybersecurity analysts and industry leaders predict that electronic warfare and managed services will top the U.S. government's priority list to improve cybersecurity during the next fiscal cycle.
Lockheed Martin, one of the five major cybersecurity contractors for the federal government, told Fifth Domain that they are focusing on signals intelligence and electronic warfare in the new year, which began Oct. 1.
Cybersecurity and electronic warfare “can disrupt, deny, degrade, deceive and destroy adversaries' electronic systems,” Deon Viergutz, vice president of Lockheed Martin's cyber division told Fifth Domain in an email. “The ability to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum allows militaries to not only establish control, but also keep soldiers out of harm's way by providing offensive and defensive techniques from remote locations.”
Russia's use of electronic warfare during its 2015 invasion of Ukraine exposed how the Department of Defense needs to boost its own digital combat tools, Brad Curran, an analyst at Front & Sullivan previously told Fifth Domain.
The White House's new cybersecurity strategy states that the federal government will boost efforts to lawfully gather evidence of criminal activity and disrupt criminal networks through new legislation. It could translate into a greater need for tools that can manage large amounts of data, such as artificial intelligence.
But along with the expected increase in electronic warfare, analysts and firms are predicting a rise in managed and cloud based services.
Raytheon, another of the five major cybersecurity U.S. government contractors, said they expected the federal government to need more managed security operations.
“Concepts like security operations center-as-a-service, and others are gaining momentum due to the desire for scalability. Federal agencies will continue to look to contracted service providers for expertise and support,” John DeSimone, a vice president for cybersecurity and special missions at Raytheon told Fifth Domain in an email.
Curran said he expects the federal government to save money by using more cloud-based services, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure.
The Trump administration has seen an increased in shared services, said Suzanne Spaulding, a former undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Which services they will ultimately centralize is hard to see,” Spaulding said. She added the decision-space is “is tricky because at the end of the day, cabinet secretaries also need to be accountable for their own cybersecurity.”
Distributed cloud-based communications is a key priority of the Department of Homeland Security, according to the agency's 2017 industry guide. The department also said they were looking to invest in metrics for cybersecurity effectiveness and data capture of networked devices.
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September 9, 2019 | International, C4ISR
Who should manage the Pentagon’s AI data? DARPA’s director has a suggestion.
By: Jill Aitoro The Pentagon's needs one central hub to manage all of the data supporting artificial intelligence across the services — and the newly stood-up Joint Artificial Intelligence Center should be the entity to take that on, said Steve Walker, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA has funded foundational AI work for 56 years, now concentrating on what Walker calls third wave AI that focuses on human and machine interaction as well as building “trust and explainability” of the data, Walker said during a panel discussion at the Defense News Conference on Sept. 4. “Everybody should own it, but I think there's a real need in [the Department of Defense] to understand how to do what we call AI engineering,” he said. “We can do the foundational part, the research, but who's going to manage the data? Who's going to update the data as it changes? Who's going to update the algorithms as the data changes? "I know that the Joint AI Center has stood up in the department. I've encouraged them to take that on for all of DoD and all the services. I think that would be an excellent role for them.” Established in June 2018, the Joint AI Center is an effort to accelerate the Pentagon's adoption and integration of AI at scale. As a center of excellence, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, JAIC's director, said the organization was intended to expand beyond product delivery to include “strategic engagement and policy, plans and analysis, and intelligence and more.” It's been billed as a clearing house for organizing the DoD's thinking and projects related to AI. That said, it's too soon to know whether JAIC will take Walker's advice and serve as a central manager of sorts for AI data; he did say leadership seemed “amenable” to the idea. A centralized hub for data could also ease efforts underway by agencies. The Air Force has people plugged in with the JAIC effort, as well as DARPA and academic institutions. The service is starting an AI accelerator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where members of the Air Force are embedding with the university's computer science and AI lab. “We're trying to make it real, to take some of what Dr. Walker and his team had been working on and turn it into something that our airmen out in the field can use across the spectrum,” said Gen. Stephen “Seve” Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff. “Whether you're logistics, whether you're an operator, whether you're space. I would make it real.” At the end of the day, successful AI efforts are based on big data sets. Without that underlying data, the Pentagon is “building a house on sand,” said Juliana Vida, the chief technical adviser for the public sector at Splunk, Inc. “If you don't get the foundation right, the input into the machine-learning algorithm is not going to be complete. It's not going to be correct. Even though it's not cool and it doesn't go bang and it's not sexy, the data is the underlying piece to all of these other technologies,” Vida said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/09/06/who-should-control-the-pentagons-ai-data-darpas-director-has-a-suggestion/
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April 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace
SUISSE LE TEST DES FUTURS AVIONS DE COMBAT A COMMENCÉ
Les tests des cinq avions de combat en lice pour remplacer les Tiger et les F/A-18 de l'armée suisse ont débuté. L'Eurofighter d'Airbus a ouvert le bal vendredi sur la base aérienne de Payerne (VD). Outre l'Eurofighter, quatre autres concurrents sont en lice: le Gripen E suédois (Saab), le Rafale français (Dassault) ainsi que les deux avions américains, le successeur du F/A-18, le Super Hornet de Boeing, et le F-35A de Lockheed-Martin. L'ordre de passage des candidats a été fixé par ordre alphabétique des constructeurs. Quatre jours de tests sont prévus pour chacun. Tous les candidats ont les mêmes chances. Aucun choix préalable n'a été effectué et pour l'instant, les avions ne seront pas comparés entre eux. Cette phase interviendra lors du deuxième appel d'offres, avait indiqué lundi Christian Catrina, délégué de la cheffe du Département fédéral de la défense pour le projet d'achat des avions de combat. Vérifier les capacités L'objectif de ces tests est de vérifier les capacités des avions et les données des offres déposées par les différents constructeurs. Les essais incluent huit missions comportant des t'ches spécifiques. Effectuées par un ou deux avions de combat, ces missions consisteront en 17 décollages et atterrissage. Elles seront axées sur les aspects opérationnels, les aspects techniques et les caractéristiques particulières. Un vol d'introduction aura lieu avant les essais en vol et au sol pour permettre aux pilotes étrangers de se familiariser avec l'espace aérien suisse. Les missions seront effectuées en solo par un pilote étranger pour le F-35A et le Gripen E qui sont des monoplaces, avait précisé armasuisse. Un ingénieur suisse accompagnera les autres vols. Les évaluations se feront ensuite gr'ce aux enregistrements à bord. La procédure garantit un traitement objectif et identique de tous les candidats. Le choix du modèle se fera sur des bases équitables. Les tests concernent aussi les audits de support produits, les essais en simulateur et les essais au sol en Suisse. https://www.lematin.ch/suisse/test-futurs-avions-combat-commence/story/14127523