8 février 2023 | International, Terrestre
The military should turn its network innovation upside down
When it comes to network innovation, the Pentagon should let our warfighters decide what risks to take.
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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11 décembre 2019 | International, Terrestre
Analysis: NATO's defence budget formula is flawed — and Canada isn't going to meet its target
Trump is angry that a number of NATO nations haven't met an agreement, reached five years ago, to spend two per cent of their annual Gross Domestic Product on defence DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN Another NATO summit brings another chance for U.S. President Donald Trump to browbeat America's allies for not spending enough on defence. Trump is angry that a number of NATO nations haven't met an agreement, reached five years ago, to spend two per cent of their annual Gross Domestic Product on defence. But that GDP yardstick has been rendered almost meaningless this year as the tiny nation of Bulgaria has joined the U.S. super power as being one of NATO's top military spenders. Bulgaria's GDP is so small that by purchasing eight F-16 fighter jets in a one-time outlay of $1.5 billion, the country will now be spending 3.25 per cent of its economic output on its military. Only the U.S., which spends 3.4 per cent of GDP on defence, is higher. Using the GDP measurement means that Estonia, which has one of the smallest navies in the world with four ships, has reached the NATO gold standard of two per cent. Canada, which spends more than 20 times the amount in actual dollars on its military, is viewed as a NATO deadbeat. For that reason, both Conservative and Liberal governments have pushed back on the GDP measurement, which was agreed to by NATO nations at a summit in Wales in 2014. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, arguably the most supportive leader of the Canadian military that the country had seen in decades, dismissed the notion of reaching that two per cent target, even though Canada signed on to the goal. At the Wales summit, Harper's staff pointed out that reaching the two per cent mark would have required the military's budget to almost double, something that was not fiscally or politically possible. Harper himself had come under fire from defence analysts who pointed out that under his government, the percentage of GDP spent on defence reached almost an all-time low of around 1 per cent. But Harper countered that it's the amount of actual spending and capability of a country's military that matters, not the GDP measurement. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was essentially using the same argument Tuesday when he met with Trump at the NATO summit. “I think it's important to look at what is actually being done,” with defence dollars, Trudeau said. Canada only spends about 1.3 per cent of GDP on defence. But tabulate the defence dollars actually being spent on the military and Canada ranks an impressive sixth among the 29 NATO nations. The Liberal government's defence policy has promised even more money in the future. Military spending is set to increase from the current $21.8 billion to $32.7 billion in 2026-2027. Trudeau also noted in his meeting with Trump on Tuesday the key role Canada is playing in NATO operations in both Latvia and Iraq. Germany has taken a similar approach to the one used by Canada's Conservative and Liberal governments. It believes the amount of money actually being spent on military forces is more important than measuring it as a percentage of the GDP. Germany has also pointed out it is the second largest provider of troops for NATO operations. Trump is expected to once again criticize Germany for its level of defence spending. But the country does not seem to be in a hurry to make the two per cent goal. Germany currently spends about 1.4 per cent or around $64 billion annually. Earlier this year it told NATO it would reach 1.5 per cent of GDP by 2024. The other issue facing the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces related to the two per cent goal is one of capacity. Even if the defence budget was boosted to meet two per cent, the department simply doesn't have the ability to spend that amount of money. Around half the defence budget is for salaries and while the senior military leadership would welcome an increase in the ranks the problem they face is that young Canadians aren't exactly rushing out to join the forces. The military could spend more money on acquiring additional equipment. But a lack of trained procurement staff has been an obstacle standing in the way of even getting approved programs underway. Trudeau's explanation Tuesday about Canada's military spending being on a steady increase seemed to placate Trump, at least for now. The U.S. president responded that he views Canada as “slightly delinquent” when it comes to defence spending. “But they'll be okay,” he told journalists. “I have confidence. They'll get there quickly, I think.” https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/analysis-natos-defence-budget-formula-is-flawed-and-canada-isnt-going-to-meet-its-target