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By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany – German authorities believe they are on firm legal footing to retaliate against cyber attacks by unleashing digital or conventional counterattacks, according to a series of recent written responses by government officials to lawmakers. The documents shed light on some of the legal considerations of cyber-warfare mulled in Berlin, just as the Bundeswehr moves toward full operational capability of a new command devoted to cyber operations. Some of the assertions outlined in a missive last month are surprisingly hawkish for a country reflexively averse to the use of military force. While acknowledging certain gray areas in responding to potentially crippling cyber attacks, officials also made clear that defending the country would afford the security services broad leeway under international law. “Just as in the land, air and naval domains, the Bundeswehr possesses 'active and reactive' capabilities that can be used for lawful operations,” Peter Tauber, the parliamentary deputy defense secretary, wrote to a collection of lawmakers from the opposition Green Party. So-called hack backs, or the retaliatory targeting of an attacker's information infrastructure, fall into that category, according to Tauber. As such, no new legal authorities for cyber defense would be required, he argued. At the same time, officials noted that such counterattacks would be permitted only as a counter-strike, not as an unprovoked act. Full Article: https://www.fifthdomain.com/global/europe/2018/08/07/german-cyberwarriors-assert-right-to-hack-back-when-attacked/

By: Shalom Lipner Nuclear proliferation appears to weigh heavily on U.S. President Donald Trump's mind. Standing next to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Helsinki last month, Trump said ominously that it's “probably the most important thing that we can be working on.” Since then, Trump has proposed dramatically to negotiate denuclearization with Iran — after threatening the country with “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before” — and even floated the idea of a second meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with the goal of dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. For someone whose projection of power derives so intensely from online networks, Trump is surprisingly old-fashioned. During the 1964 presidential campaign, President Lyndon Johnson aired a spot deemed so controversial than it never ran a second time. As an innocent, young girl picked petals off a daisy in the park, her voice was drowned out slowly by a launch countdown. Then, narrating against the backdrop of a mushroom cloud, Johnson proclaimed: “We must either love each other, or we must die.” His Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater — the implicit warmonger who was not even mentioned by name — lost by an overwhelming margin. But the more contemporary battlefield of cyberspace merited not one single mention in Trump's remarks alongside Putin in Finland. Unless you count the infamous Democratic National Committee server, that is, which he referenced nine times. While Trump obsesses about politics, the U.S. is exposed to great danger. Drawing a direct comparison to 9/11, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has warned that America's “digital infrastructure ... is literally under attack.” He fingered Russia as the “most aggressive foreign actor” and awarded dishonorable mentions to China, Iran and North Korea. Trump then chose to accept Putin's denials of Russian interference over the assessment of his intelligence chiefs. His subsequent reversal was unpersuasive. Full Article: https://www.fifthdomain.com/opinion/2018/08/06/in-contemporary-warfare-cyber-trumps-nukes/

SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. So, I asked, could a sufficiently high-powered neutron beam not just detect a nuclear warhead from a distance, but actually disable it? Dent, who worked on the Safeguard missile defense system as a young Army officer and later on Reagan's Star Wars initiative for SAIC, pondered a moment. Then he said: “Could it fry the electronics ? Yes, it could." SPACE & MISSILE DEFENSE SYMPOSIUM, HUNTSVILLE, ALA.: Imagine a technology that could detect roadside bombs and landmines buried underground, pick out a nuclear warhead from a cloud of decoys miles away, or even fry enemy electronics, potentially disarming those warheads from a distance. Well, physicist William Dent has invented that technology and briefed its potential to the Army and industry here. It's called a neutron beam generator. Dent's idea is a potential breakthrough for bomb squads and missile defenses, enthused conference organizer David Mann, a three-star Army general who ran Space & Missile Defense Command here (SMDC) until his retirement in 2016. Despite the Star Trek-esque name, Mann told me after Dent's presentation, this is a feasible real-world technology, a matter of “when, not if.” Dent is already working with the Army to explore the low-hanging fruit: detecting buried explosives at a distance. Now, the military already uses neutron generators for this, because neutrons easily penetrate most materials (they have no electric charge to interact with and a lot of mass to give them momentum) but will stop and generate a distinctive burst of gamma rays when they hit high-density materials like explosives. The problem with current systems is their range is very short, anywhere from one meter to 20-plus depending on the size of the explosive and the depth to which it's buried. Why? Traditional neutron generators shoot off neutrons indiscriminately in all directions, the same way a light bulb emits light. That means the neutrons spread out rapidly, in fact exponentially (specifically, divide strength at the source by the square of the distance). Very soon, there are too few of them hitting any particular target to trigger enough gamma radiation to detect. Full Article: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/08/detect-nukes-in-flight-with-electron-beam-technology/

By: Justin Lynch Attacks on American power systems are likely to be small and localized, according to a cybersecurity firm, casting doubt on the ability of a foreign power to take down broad swaths of U.S. electric systems at once. Given current technology it is not reasonable to expect an enemy to shut down large portions of the U.S grid., but hackers do have the ability to target an individual location, Joe Slowik, an adversary hunter at the cybersecurity firm Dragos, told Fifth Domain at the Black Hat conference. “I might not be able to turn off the eastern seaboard, but if I want to cause a power blip in Washington D.C., that is feasible,” Slowik said. His cautions come after a series of warnings from the U.S. government regarding the potential for attacks on the power infrastructure. "Think about New England in January, the grid going down for three days. A lot of people are going to suffer and die,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said during a July 13 event at the Hudson Institute. Full Article: https://www.fifthdomain.com/show-reporters/black-hat/2018/08/08/why-small-cyberattacks-on-power-systems-more-likely-than-a-long-running-blackout/

BY: STEPHEN TRIMBLE The US Air Force has selected Lockheed Martin to rapidly develop and field both new hypersonic missiles launched as a response to surprise developments in high-speed weapons by China and Russia, newly-released acquisition documents confirm. The service already announced a $928 million award in April deal for Lockheed's Missiles and Space company to develop the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon (HCSW, pronounced “Hacksaw”). But a new document reveals that the USAF awarded a separate deal to Lockheed's Missiles and Fire Control division in July 2017 to rapidly develop and field the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW, pronounced “Arrow”). The ARRW, now assigned the designation AGM-183A, evolves from the Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) programme launched in 2014 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). By using a rocket to boost the missile to very high altitudes, the unpowered ARRW then glides down to lower altitudes at speeds up to Mach 20. Full Article: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lockheed-martin-claims-both-usaf-hypersonic-programm-450968/

By: Jen Judson ANDOVER, Mass. — Raytheon has built a new massive radar development facility — complete with robotic helpers — to assemble and test its newest radars, but the facility's design will take the company's radar work well into the future. Meeting visitors at the door of the $72 million addition to Raytheon's Andover, Massachusetts, radar production facility is a small square robot flashing purple light, offering a verbal welcome before scooting off to its docking station across the expansive room. The Automated Guided Vehicle whisks past an enormous, yellow robotic arm that takes on a life of its own as it inspects the side of an array with a laser, chooses a tool and a part, and gets to work assembling a component. Raytheon will build its AN/SPY-6 radars under contract with the U.S. Navy in the new facility. The company brought its first array under contract there in June, only 18 months after the company decided to begin the project to build the new 30,000-square-foot center. The development facility was partly driven by Raytheon's need to build its AN/SPY-6 missile defense radars. It needed a larger facility and near-field ranges to test and calibrate the large arrays. Full Article: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/08/07/raytheon-builds-massive-radar-development-facility-complete-with-robotic-helpers/

By: Mark Pomerleau 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. Full Article: https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/08/07/heres-a-look-at-the-armys-new-enterprise-cloud-strategy/

By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The Air Force is preparing to begin buying light attack aircraft next year — and the winner is going to be either Textron's AT-6 Wolverine or the Sierra Nevada Corp.-Embraer A-29 Super Tucano. According to a pre-solicitation posted on FedBizOpps on Aug. 3, the service will put out a final request for proposals to the two competitors in December with the hopes of awarding a contract by the end of September 2019. However, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told Defense News on Monday that service leaders have not yet made a final decision on whether to green-light a program of record. Should that happen, the pre-solicitation will ensure that the service can move as quickly as it would like to eventually procure new planes, she said. If the new weapons program moves forward, it appears the service will limit the competition to the two aircraft currently involved in the service's light attack experiment. The pre-solicitation states that SNC and Textron Aviation “are the only firms that appear to possess the capability necessary to meet the requirement within the Air Force's time frame without causing an unacceptable delay in meeting the needs of the warfighter.” The Air Force's decision to only consider the A-29 and AT-6 had been foreshadowed by officials like Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, its top uniformed acquisition officer, who repeatedly stated that the service would likely limit a competition to those two participants. Full Article: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/08/06/the-light-attack-aircraft-competition-will-be-down-to-two-competitors/

By: David B. Larter The U.S. Navy's $122.3 billion Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program is off to an inauspicious start after faulty welding was discovered in several missile tubes destined for both the Columbia and Virginia-class programs, as well as the United Kingdom's follow-on SSBN program. In all, 12 missile tubes manufactured by BWXT, Inc., are being scrutinized for substandard welds. Seven of the 12 had been delivered to prime contractor General Dynamics Electric Boatand were in various stages of outfitting, and five were still under construction. The Navy and Electric Boat have launched an investigation, according to a statement from Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Bill Couch. “All BWXT welding requiring volumetric inspection has been halted until the investigation is complete,” Couch said. The bad welds came to light after discrepancies were discovered with the equipment BWXT used to test the welds before shipping them to GDEB, according to a source familiar with the issue. The discovery of a significant quality control issue at the very outset of fabrication of Columbia injects uncertainty in a program that already has little room for delays. The issue is made even more troubling because it arises from a vendor with an excellent reputation, and raises questions about whether the Navy can deliver Columbia on time, something the Navy says is vital to ensuring continuous nuclear deterrent patrols as the Ohio class reaches the end of its service life. Full Article: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/08/06/the-us-navys-top-acquisition-priority-stumbles-out-of-the-gate-after-bad-welds-discovered-in-missile-tubes/