20 août 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Hackers Exploit PHP Vulnerability to Deploy Stealthy Msupedge Backdoor
Msupedge, a new backdoor exploiting a PHP flaw, targets a Taiwanese university using DNS tunneling for communication.
21 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
‘I’ll be their angel investor’: Air Force vice chief wants to crowdsource airmen’s ideas
By: Kyle Rempfer
As the U.S. military turns its attention to the threats posed by near-peer adversaries, Air Force leadership is shifting its focus to great power approaches to combat, like multi-domain operations and expeditionary warfare.
A culture of innovation among airmen will be pivotal in preparing for such a conflict, and the effort to foster that independence and creativity is already underway.
In the coming weeks, the Air Force will be rolling out a new initiative to crowdsource solutions from airmen around the service.
Across all specialty codes, the service is calling on airmen to design apps, develop algorithms and create new approaches to the problems that plague their career fields or help the Air Force carry out its missions.
The program — dubbed the Vice Chief's Challenge — will be spearheaded by Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen Wilson.
“We want to take the ideas our airmen have to see around corners, anticipate what's next and solve these really complex national security challenges,” Wilson told Air Force Times.
Those challenges range from fusing open-source social media information into actionable intelligence with new software, to upgrading legacy aircraft with gadgets to help airmen stay in the fight longer.
“Navigation apps like Waze change the way we travel across town by giving us an intuitive display that integrates traffic, hazards, and route recommendations in real time. Companies like Uber and Amazon have transformed our view of logistics," according to a copy of the Vice Chief's Challenge provided to Air Force Times. "They are not the only ones leaning forward. I am sure each of you have seen opportunities to enhance [multi-domain operations]. I want to hear your best ideas.”
The initiative is designed to deliver capabilities to the Air Force in months, rather than the usual years, Wilson said. And it's going to become routine, always running against the backdrop of the service's other acquisition initiatives.
“It's this cultural change and this shift that happens ... and today, I think it's clear in this great power competition, we need this urgently," Wilson said. “I need to remove barriers to innovation."
The Vice Chief's Challenge will consist of three phases. First, ideas will be solicited from across the service in a broad announcement. Then, workshops will be set up in which subject matter experts help refine the most promising proposals and draft development plans for the budding ideas. The final phase will involve developing and demonstrating prototypes for the chosen concepts.
“We'll start small by gathering ideas from individual airmen, rapidly evolve concepts with national thought leaders, and scale fast by working with industry to build and demonstrate prototypes in the next year,” Wilson said.
Each phase will be led by a different organization, but the Air Force Research Lab and the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff will serve as executive agents to ensure smooth transition between phases.
The initiative is similar to last year's first-ever Spark Tank innovation proposals.
“Each of the [major commands] went out to their different wings and solicited ideas, picked their best ones and came to us," Wilson said. "There were a dozen ideas, of which we picked six of them and presented them at the [Warfighter's Edge] conference.”
The idea chosen for development ended up being that of a boom operator on the KC-135 Stratotanker. He proposed a plan to re-engineer the boom operator platform instructor position for the entire KC-135 fleet at a projected cost of $1.5 million. The proposed innovation aims to both reduce back and neck injuries and save the Air Force $132 million each year in this critical aircrew specialty, according to Air Mobility Command.
“It was across the fleet, easy to implement, and that's what we're using now,” Wilson said.
Other innovative ideas that Wilson has already seen, and clearly wants more of, involve software development that connects sensors, platforms and nodes to share information across the force.
“We had an airman and second lieutenant who briefed me on software development they had done that was unbelievable — the capability they were bringing me and the speed at which they were doing it,” Wilson said.
The duo took SIPRNet information and found a way to fuse it together using complex computer coding for targeting purposes. The result was a tool dreamed up in-house that directly solved a pressing issue.
Much of that is simply owed to the fact that those airmen knew what they needed to do, how to do it and already worked in a position to provide the service.
“The CEO of Pivotal [Software Inc.] pulled me aside and said ‘I work with all the Fortune 500 companies across the world, and I would put these two people against any company, anywhere,'” Wilson said.
That's the sort of innovation the Vice Chief's Challenge is looking to tap into.
Wilson doesn't know yet how many ideas will be taken to completion, but by this time next year, he's hoping that the Vice Chief's Challenge will be handing out some awards.
“I can't compensate them like industry can, but I can offer them purpose," he said.
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16 juillet 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Autre défense
New Army cyber gear for drones and teams test, protect units in another domain
By: Todd South A prototype device used recently at the Army's premiere combat training center has soldiers using precision cyber techniques to target small drones that might have been missed with other equipment and methods. Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division used the cyber precision drone detection system during a January rotation at the National Training Center. The equipment allowed soldiers to get alerts of drone presence and ways to target it that helped protect the brigade, according to an Army release. Capt. Christopher Packard said the prototype integrated with existing signal, intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities. Five soldiers embedded with the opposing force to attack the brigade with enemy drones for more realistic training, according to the release. A group of software developers at the Army's Cyber Command along with others at the Defense Digital Service built custom software and modified commercial equipment to make the early versions of the prototype last year. “The (Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office) and Tobyhanna (Army Depot) helped out with taking it from an advanced prototype and turning it into an engineering design model,” said 1st Lt. Aneesh Patel, with ARCYBER's Cyber Solutions Development Detachment with the 782nd Military Intelligence Battalion, 780th Military Intelligence Brigade. “We designed our own hardware and schematics, but what we didn't have was the proper ability to scale, and I think that's important in a bridging strategy and for any prototype.” The system is an “interim solution,” according to the release. “Being a newer system and a new tool for a maneuver unit, there are going to be a lot of things we don't know as [cyber] engineers, and a lot of their specific needs for the capability that may not have gotten through to us. So being out there was very important to this and any other project like it,” Patel said. The system will be followed by an upgraded version slated for Special Operations Command for an operational assessment this summer. Phase two will maximize the capability's operational life span by adding software updates that improve performance, according to the release. That type of equipment hits drones, but the Army also has its own cyber protection teams, such as the one featured in another release out of Grafenwoehr, Germany in June, where the 301st and 172nd CPTs used defensive measures for the Sabre Guardian 19 exercise. The annual exercise is taking place this year in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, co-led by the Romanian Joint Force Command. The teams “create chaos by accessing the network and either disabling it or stealing classified information and using it against the units involved in the exercise.” Though cyber threats have been a talking point among commanders for years, it wasn't until this most recent rotation that cyber threats were simulated for the exercise, said Capt. Joe McNerney, 301st CPT battle captain. The captain explained that the CPTs simulate an insider threat. The 172nd is a combination of soldiers and airmen from units based in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The 301st is an Air Force unit out of the Battle Creek Air National Guard Base, Michigan. “They're people we work with on a daily basis so we want to beat them," said Sgt. Brian Stevens, an information technology specialist from Detroit. “We have to make them feel pain at some level.” https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/07/15/new-army-cyber-gear-for-drones-and-teams-test-protect-units-in-another-domain/
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29 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
SASC Frets DoD Missile Warning Satellite Efforts May Be Flailing
The first Next-Gen OPIR satellites, designed to replace the current SBIRS missile warning constellation beginning in 2025, are likely to be delayed, says GAO in a new report.