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  27 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  In chaos, there’s opportunity … and that’s bad news

  James Yeager This year is only four months old and it's already one for the history books — and not in a great way. As the defense community works in tandem with the broader government to keep citizens safe and healthy, cybersecurity threats are only becoming more aggressive. If we've learned anything about cyber adversaries, it's that they will seize on any opportunity to gain an advantage in targeting their victims, including exploiting the fears of the public during a global pandemic. As COVID-19 has moved from the East to the West, adversaries have followed suit, using lures that play into people's desperation for information on the disease. In “The Art of War,” Sun-Tzu said“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” The COVID-19 virus is infecting more than just people. The pandemic has created chaos and handed adversaries an irresistible opportunity to exploit the situation to gain entry into our networks, whether that's to steal intellectual property, disrupt operations, or gain a strategic advantage if they are a nation-state actor. Already, we are seeing an increase in phishing campaigns using COVID-19 as a hook to launch malware in emails disguised as alerts. Particularly vulnerable are the thousands of remote workers — government employees and contractors alike — who are using their own home networks, which are largely less sophisticated and secure than their work environments. The stakes are high, particularly for those in defense jobs, where an errant click can have devastating consequences. Coincidently, 2020 is the year when the DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification has grown teeth and will force more than 300,000 defense contractors to up their cybersecurity game or face bottom-line consequences. Now is not the time to make mistakes. In CrowdStrike's recent Global Threat Report, we captured and analyzed real-world inputs from observed trends in cyber-attacks on commercial and government enterprises. The following are some of the notable attack vectors and trends we observed across the public sector during 2019: An escalation in ransom demands, including ransomware attacks on defense supply chain providers, schools and local municipalities. Surpassing the volume of malware attacks are malware-free attacks that use code which executes from memory or stolen login credentials. Continued state-sponsored targeted intrusions aimed at the government and defense sector. In fact, we have witnessed adversaries exploiting fear around COVID-19 to socially engineer their way to user credentials and sensitive data. In the months ahead, I contend we'll see many more of the same tactics from the same bad actors: Russia, China and newer players on the block, such as Iran, which has leveraged U.S. social media platforms to develop information operations campaigns. Amidst massive change, periodic chaos and long-term disruption, the defense community — government and industry — must put a premium on speed. Speed to detect. Speed to investigate. Speed to mitigate. We recommend that agencies and companies implement cybersecurity practices that follow the 1-10-60 Rule: detect intrusions within 1 minute; investigate and gain a comprehensive understanding of the attack within 10 minutes; and contain and remove the threatening adversary from the network within 60 minutes. This benchmark will limit the damage caused by inevitable attacks. Yes, inevitable. Cyberattacks are a constant and while building a bigger, wider and thicker wall may help keep bad actors out, they are persistent and determined enough to eventually get in, and when they do, you're on the clock. This year will only get worse as the impacts of COVID-19 will be deep, damaging and long-lasting. We're all faced with loss and uncertainty as we attempt to recover from the global pandemic. For the defense community, there is no time to recover and regroup. You are already on the clock, as those who wish to do our nation harm are already hard at work. https://www.fifthdomain.com/opinion/2020/04/24/in-chaos-theres-opportunity-and-thats-bad-news/

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  7 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  With the commercial aviation industry in a nosedive, the Defense Department offers airlines a lifeline

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the coronavirus pandemic roils the commercial airline industry, U.S. Transportation Command is becoming increasingly concerned about the impact to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, a program where U.S. airlines like United and Delta can fly transport missions on behalf of the Defense Department in an emergency. The White House has not officially activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, or CRAF, to support of COVID-19 prevention operations. However, as travel restrictions force airlines to cancel flights and make cuts to their aircraft fleets, the military is looking for opportunities where it can offload work to its CRAF partners in the hopes of softening the financial blow, said Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, who leads TRANSCOM. “On a cargo side, the civil aviation fleet is going pretty strong. On a passenger side, it has dropped off significantly,” Lyons told reporters Tuesday. “We're talking to [commercial airline companies] regularly. I am concerned, to some degree, about impacts on the passenger segment of the aviation industry, so any opportunity we have to push workload in their direction, we're doing that.” According to the Air Force, 25 airlines and a total 433 aircraft are involved in the CRAF program as of April 2019 — though those numbers often change on a monthly basis, the service notes. So far, no commercial airline companies have notified the Defense Department that they will not be able to meet their contractual commitments for the CRAF program, said Air Mobility Command spokeswoman Capt. Nicole Ferrara. But while the churn of the commercial airline industry hasn't immediately resulted in a reduction of assets for the CRAF program, it remains to be seen whether there could be long term impact, especially as companies whittle down the size of their fleets and number of types of aircraft. For instance, Delta Airlines in March announced it would speed up the retirements of its McDonnell Douglas MD-88 and MD-90 aircraft, as well as some older Boeing 767s. Meanwhile, American Airlines announced it would accelerate the retirements of a number of aircraft fleets. Instead of retiring in 2025, its Boeing 757s will be phased out by mid-2021, while its Boeing 767s will leave the fleet this May instead of next year. The airline will also phase out all 20 of its Embraer E190s and all nine of its A330-300s over the next year. To help companies build up revenue, the U.S. government issued contract awards to a number of commercial airlines to perform “repatriation flights” that transport American citizens and U.S. permanent residents, who are stranded in foreign countries, back to U.S. soil. On March 27, TRANSCOM was tapped to assist the Department of State Repatriation Task Force by managing contracts with the U.S. airline industry for commercial aircraft used to return Americans to the United States. So far, TRANSCOM has been responsible for scheduling commercial flights for about 1,200 people since the command took over contracting efforts, Dave Dunn, a spokesman for the command, told Defense News last week. During the first mission, planned for April 4, National Airlines transported U.S. citizens and permanent residents from Nigeria to Washington. TRANSCOM has also awarded contracts to Delta Air Lines and Omni Air for repatriation missions, with total value of $2.5 million across all three vendors. There have still been some limited challenges to scheduling repatriation flights on commercial airlines, noted Dunn. For instance, travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus outbreak have made it difficult to route stopovers for crew rest and fuel, as many normal locations are not available. However, Lyons said he expects the number of repatriation flights performed by commercial vendors to grow “significantly.” “There will still be small numbers that move on a space available basis [via military aircraft] but the main effort is through our Civil Reserve Aviation Fleet partners that we use on a day-to-day basis,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/04/06/with-the-commercial-aviation-industry-in-a-nosedive-the-defense-department-offers-airlines-a-lifeline/

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  24 avril 2020 | International, Terrestre

  US Army confident any tech schedule slips are recoverable

  By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is girding for modernization program delays and a rise in acquisition costs as the coronavirus pandemic ripples across its installations and through its network of suppliers. Army leaders told reporters Thursday they are confident the service can juggle schedules to make up for any emerging delays and would ask Congress to help address future cost growth. While some larger prime contractors have adapted quickly, officials said, they warned that lower-tier companies with less slack in their workforces remain vulnerable. The Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System had several major tests and evaluations scheduled, including a long-awaited limited-user test, or LUT. However, Army Futures Command chief Gen. Mike Murray said in a call with reporters that the testing schedule “will slide a little bit, but we will be on time” for the program's other milestone decisions. “I am very confident we will get the LUT done this summer or early fall,” he said. The Army is in the third year of an ambitious modernization overhaul, which depends in part on “soldier touchpoints,” or user evaluations of new equipment. The modernization efforts are now in question as commanders apply physical distancing measures to protect their soldiers. For example, a touchpoint at Fort Riley, Kansas, for a future replacement of the RQ-7 Shadow unmanned aircraft system is going ahead, but the commander at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, decided to postpone one there. Whether wider program delays are coming, “we're still watching very closely, and what I am very much focused on is there may be some slips in key decisions and soldier touchpoints,” Murray said. “The current estimate is we will deliver that [UAS] capability to our soldiers by the time we said we would.” The Army will also push a critical touchpoint for the Integrated Visual Augmentation System from the summer to the fall after Microsoft — a subcontractor for the prime — temporarily closed. The device is a set of goggles meant to provide soldiers next-level night and thermal vision as well as enhance navigation and targeting. “Not only for that program but for all our programs, input from the soldiers that were actually asked to use this equipment has been critical,” Murray said. “That has been impacted.” The comments came as the Pentagon expects a broader three-month delay for major acquisition programs and speeds progress payments to primes that should trickle to small businesses. Army acquisitions officials have worked to help get second- and third-tier suppliers access to small business loans as well as facilitate cash flow to them. “The supply chain does have some challenges, and that's probably where the vast majority of any slips would occur that are tied to individual companies,” said Bruce Jette, the Army's acquisition chief. “These companies are small, and if one person gets COVID in the company, the next thing you know you've lost 14 days with the company because everybody that didn't get it is in quarantine.” BAE Systems coordinated a temporary closure with the Army and plans to scrap a planned summer break to make up the time. Boeing's closure in Philadelphia also came and went. “It's like that down [the] chain for the primes: They tend to be coming back online,” Jette said. “The ones where we end up with two or three weeks are the ones where we've got small individual companies of maybe 20 to 30 people who were suppliers of cables, or connectors and things like that. “There's something there that tends to have a bigger impact or take a little bit longer time. And with them, we try to execute those portions of the program which aren't dependent upon those components, and then we'll come back and clean up the battlespace.” Some big agenda items for the Army don't appear to have been knocked off balance. For example, the Army is still planning on another flight test of Lockheed Martin's Precision Strike Munition, or PrSM, by April 30, which will deliver a new long-range precision fires capability to the battlefield. The capability is the Army's No. 1 modernization priority. “I'm confident enough that we're going to do the next test flight [of] PrSM that I scheduled a military aircraft to go out and see it, so I'm very confident,” Murray said. The Army's latest “night court” review — used to divest the service of unneeded programs — proceeded virtually, as much of the Pentagon shifted to remote work. As part of the review, Army leaders recently received the final brief concerning equipment. “A lot of the recommendations are pretty much close to being finalized,” Murray said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/04/23/us-army-confident-any-tech-schedule-slips-are-recoverable/