Inside Operation Diplomatic Specter: Chinese APT Group's Stealthy Tactics Exposed

Sur le même sujet

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  5 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  U.S. Air Force Signs Predictive Maintenance Enterprise Agreement with U.K.-Based SDL

  The U.S. Air Force is to install sensors on the military service's fleet of aircraft to manage millions of pieces of information and streamline maintenance under a predictive maintenance enterprise agreement signed with the U.K.-based SDL this month. SDL said that the agreement will support maintenance and operations personnel with diagnostic checklists and repair procedures and that the predictive maintenance system will interact with other Air Force systems, such as health monitoring, materials management and maintenance management systems. Other high-profile clients using SDL in non-aviation applications include Amazon [AMZN], Nike [NKE], and Ikea. Under the enterprise agreement with the Air Force, SDL is to provide the SDLContenta Publishing Suite for Technical Order (TO) creation, management and delivery, which includes supporting the translation of technical information into predictive maintenance and analysis data across all Air Force assets. Thomas Labarthe, SDL's chief revenue officer, said that the Air Force “is a diligent organization, looking to streamline processes and gain maximum efficiencies across its global operations.” As the Air Force's enterprise technical data solution, SDL is to work closely with the Air Force “to deliver efficiencies across its operations,” Labarthe said. SDL said that the Air Force identified the SDL solution as “the only system” that could meet the service's enterprise requirements, as the Air Force's inventory of technical orders is produced from a variety of source formats, including FrameMaker, Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and S1000D. The Air Force Technical Order Authoring and Publishing (TOAP) system is to help manage technical maintenance content in support of all Air Force programs, including the new T-X trainer aircraft program, and various programs aligned under the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. https://www.defensedaily.com/u-s-air-force-signs-predictive-maintenance-enterprise-agreement-u-k-based-sdl/air-force/

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  21 septembre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  CENTCOM looks to industry for data-centric network

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — U.S. Central Command needs industry's help in designing a network infrastructure that provides improved secure information sharing with allies and partners, its top IT official said Sept. 17. Brig. Gen. Jeth Rey, director of command and control, communications, and computer systems at CENTCOM, said his team is working to establish a data-centric architecture that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to limit access to data based only on what a user needs. “What I have the team looking at is working in that transport agnostic, looking at a data-centric connection, and then how can we then use attributes to then release information to that person who is trying to access the data. And so that's where data centricity is at the end of the day trying to use machine learning and AI,” Rey said at the 2020 Intelligence and National Security Summit. “That's where we need help from industry.” Rey compared CENTCOM's need to the service provided by banks, where a person logs in with credentials, and then the bank reaches into its massive database, pulling out only the information specific to that person. CENTCOM, the largest combatant command, also has data and information sharing requirements with more than 50 nations, adding another degree of difficulty in developing a secure architecture where users can only access the necessary data. “We here at CENTCOM are going to work with partners, and we need to share our information with them,” Rey said. “We need that help in order to display from a single document with multiple security measures ... but release only that information on that document to that person by their credential.” The need Rey described is similar to an architecture developed by the U.S. intelligence community for its data access needs. That platform, known as IC GovCloud, enabled users to store data in one place and the community to implement security measures to limit personnel access to what they “need to know,” said Greg Smithberger, chief information officer at the National Security Agency and director of the agency's Capabilities Directorate. “We built the GovCloud from the ground up with this thought in mind so that with the data comes knowledge of where it came from and what the rules are in terms of how it needs to be handled and who has the need to know. And the systems are enforcing that need to know, so that if the humans make a mistake, there's a safety net there,” he said during the same webinar. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/09/18/centcom-looks-to-industry-for-data-centric-network/

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  6 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Proposed rule banning Chinese tech needs to consider small contractors, senators warn

  Andrew Eversden Two U.S. senators called on the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that federal regulation banning the government's use of Chinese telecommunications technology include “explicit processes” to help small businesses with compliance. In a May 4 letter sent to acting OMB Director Russ Vought, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., asked Vought to carefully consider to the needs of small businesses while the agency reviews a proposed rule. The senators' concern is in response to a proposed rule under review by OMB implementing Section 889(a)(1)(B) of the fiscal 2019 defense policy law — a provision that bans federal agencies from procuring or doing business with companies using “covered telecommunications equipment or services" in an effort to block Chinese tech companies like Huawei and ZTE from entering the U.S. government's supply chain. Rubio and Cardin are the top two senators on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. According to the letter, OMB is currently reviewing the draft proposed rule, statutorily required to be implemented Aug. 13. Because smaller companies don't have access to the same resources as larger suppliers, they may need “more assistance and time,” the senators wrote. The pair called the guidance for small businesses “vita,l” given that small businesses make up about one-quarter of federal procurement, worth $120 billion. “By providing these small firms with a clear path toward compliance and a reasonable time frame, we believe that the goal of securing the United States supply chain will be better achieved,” Rubio and Cardin wrote. Outside interest groups representing federal contractors have also pushed Congress to delay the implementation of Part B of Section 889. In a joint letter in late March, the National Defense Industrial Association and the Professional Services Council asked Congress to delay the Aug. 13 date to February 2021. They also cited the ongoing coronavirus pandemic as reason for a delay. “Part B will impose significant financial and operational costs on medium and small-sized firms at a moment of substantial uncertainty and hardship. While we agree that Part B addresses a significant problem in defense supply chains, and that additional measures are needed to protect [Department of Defense] information assets from covered equipment, COVID-19 has made the current implementation timeline infeasible,” the groups wrote. The United States government alleges that Huawei's 5G technology allows for Chinese government espionage and poses a threat to national security. Senior U.S. officials have traveled the globe, urging allies not to include Huawei's technology in their 5G networks. But the effort has been largely unsuccessful, particularly after the United Kingdom announced in January it would allow Huawei to build noncritical pieces of its 5G network. That decision was met with scorn by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Still, Rubio and Cardin warned that OMB needs to produce the regulation cautiously and carefully. “We are concerned that if the regulatory implementation language fails to adequately consider small businesses, this process could not only result in an ineffective implementation of the prohibition, but also be both harmful and costly to thousands of small federal contractors,” they wrote. https://www.fifthdomain.com/congress/capitol-hill/2020/05/05/proposed-rule-banning-chinese-tech-needs-to-consider-small-contractors-senators-warn/