Muhstik Botnet Exploiting Apache RocketMQ Flaw to Expand DDoS Attacks

On the same subject

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  February 29, 2024 | International, Land

  Congress passes fourth stopgap funding bill as 1% sequester looms

  Lawmakers kicked FY24 defense funding further down the road, raising fears at the Pentagon that congressional inaction may soon result in a 1% sequester.

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  July 22, 2019 | International, C4ISR

  DARPA Announces Microsystems Exploration Program

  Over the past few decades, DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has enabled revolutionary advances in electronics materials, devices, and systems, which have provided the United States with unique defense and economic advantages. To continue its path of successful electronics innovation, DARPA today announced a new MTO effort called the Microsystems Exploration program. The Microsystems Exploration program will constitute a series of short-term investments into high-risk, high-reward research focused on technical domains relevant to MTO. Leveraging streamlined contracting and funding approaches, awards for each area of exploration – or μE topic – will be made within 90 days of announcement. Each μE topic will run for up to 18 months, during which time researchers will work to establish the feasibility of new concepts or technologies. “This strategy of making smaller, targeted research investments will allow us to capitalize quickly on new opportunities and innovative research concepts,” said Dr. Mark Rosker, director of MTO. “The Microsystems Exploration program provides a way to assess whether or not a concept could evolve into a full program without requiring the use of more significant resources.” The Microsystems Exploration program will employ best practices from DARPA's other fast-track solicitation programs – the agency-wide AI Exploration program and the Defense Science Office's “Disruptioneering” initiative. These programs are focused on enabling rapid advances in artificial intelligence and basic science respectively, and have shown numerous benefits to this approach. Similar to these efforts, the simplified proposal, contracting, and funding process employed by each μE topic will make it even easier for individuals and organizations to contribute to DARPA's mission. Each award may be worth up to $1 million, as described in the individual μE solicitations. To help advance MTO's strategic imperatives, the Microsystems Exploration program will pursue innovative research concepts that explore frontiers in embedded microsystem intelligence and localized processing; novel electromagnetic components and technologies; microsystem integration for functional density and security; and disruptive microsystem applications in C4ISR, electronic warfare, and directed energy. In alignment with these technical domains, the first three potential topics focus on hardware security, novel materials, and new computing architectures for heterogeneous systems. The first potential topic aims to address security issues within the hardware supply chain. Defense systems increasingly rely on commercial of the shelf (COTS) devices that move through complex supply chains, with each component changing hands several times. Throughout the process, nefarious actors have numerous opportunities to compromise the technology by introducing malicious circuitry – or hardware Trojans – to printed circuit boards (PCBs). The ability to detect when components are tampered with is difficult as the attacks are designed to remain hidden and avoid post-manufacturing tests until its functionality is triggered. The “Board-Level Hardware Security” related topic could explore the technological feasibility for real-time detection against these hardware Trojans installed in complex COTS circuit boards. New uses of scandium (Sc)-doped aluminium nitride (AIN) could be investigated as a future potential μE topic. Sc-doped AlN is a popular material for a number of device applications, which span RF filters, ultrasonic sensors, and oscillators. Recent work has demonstrated the emergence of the material's use in ferroelectric switching, which has enormous potential across a number of applications and devices. However, current exploration of this capability has been limited to a research setting. The “Ferroelectric Nitride Materials and Non-Volatile Memory” related topic could expand on this research, identifying the thickness and doping ranges that exhibit ferroelectric behavior, the robustness and reproducibility of the ferroelectric response, and further demonstrating ferroelectric nitrides as a technologically useful material. Another potential μE topic could seek to address the trade-off between programmer productivity and performance that happens as hardware complexity continues to skyrocket. Advances at the hardware and software level that have enabled continued progress in computing performance, cost, and ubiquity have hit a wall. The expectation is that subsequent performance gains will come from an increased level of parallelism, specialization, and system heterogeneity, which will place further strain on programmer productivity. This “Massively Parallel Heterogeneous Computing” related topic could explore the creation of compiler technology that improves programmer productivity of massively parallel and heterogeneous processing systems. Additional information about the Microsystems Exploration program can be found under Program Announcement DARPA-PA-19-04. Further details on the three potential μE topics can be found under Special Notice DARPA-SN-19-69. The Microsystems Exploration Research Area Announcement Special Notice has been issued solely for information and potential new program planning purposes. All future and official solicitation notices for μE topics will be published to Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) at www.fbo.gov. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-07-16

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  August 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  US Army seeks new airborne tech to detect, defeat radar systems

  Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is seeking industry input on new technology allowing aircraft to survive and defeat systems in sophisticated adversarial environments made up of sensitive radars and integrated air defense systems. A notice posted online Aug. 12 from the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center is asking industry for ideas ahead of an industry day in September that will provide additional information regarding the technical specifications. The service will also answer questions in depth at the event. “The future multi-domain operational environment will present a highly lethal and complex set of traditional and non-traditional targets. These targets will include networked and mobile air defense systems with extended ranges, and long and mid-range fires systems that will deny freedom of maneuver,” the notices stated. To maintain an advantage, the notice stated, the Army aviation community must modernize its reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition and lethality with an advanced team of manned and unmanned aircraft as part of its Future Vertical Lift modernization effort, which calls for a future attack reconnaissance aircraft. The desired end state of this interconnected ecosystem will enable the penetration, disintegration and exploitation of an adversary's anti-access/area denial environment comprised of an integrated air defense system as well as surveillance and targeting systems, command-and-control capabilities, and communications technology. It will do this through a series of air-launched effects, which are a family of large and small unmanned or launched systems capable of detecting, identifying, locating and reporting threats while also delivering nonlethal effects. Some of the sensors described include those that can passively detect and locate threats within the radio frequency/electro-optical/infrared spectrums, active detection, electronic or GPS-based decoys, and sensors able to disrupt the detection of friendly systems through cyberspace or the electromagnetic spectrum. The notice lists five technology areas of interest: Hardware for the mission payloads. Hardware, software or techniques for distributed collaborative teaming capabilities to include processing technologies, cyber protection and data links to enable command and control of air-launched effects. Software or algorithms that can fuse, process, decide and act on sensor data allowing air-launched effects to autonomously react and adapt to countermeasures. Multimode/multifunction technologies consisting of payloads for synthetic aperture/moving target indicator radar or combined electronic warfare, radar and communication functions that share common apertures. Modular open-systems architecture. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2020/08/14/us-army-seeks-new-airborne-tech-to-detect-defeat-radar-systems/