6 avril 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau
The Marine Corps' main cyber war-fighting organization will soon be growing.
Maj. Gen. Lori Reynolds, commander of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, said her force doesn't have the depth to do what the Army is doing in experimenting with integrated offensive and defensive cyber effects at the tactical edge with full brigades.
This is one of the reasons the commandant approved expansion at MARFORCYBER, Reynolds told Fifth Domain following her appearance on an AFCEA-hosted panel in early April.
“We've got to do that,” she said, referring to what the Army is doing. “We've got to get the rest of the service, Training and Education Command, we've got to give them the skills and the talent, if you will, to think about how do we prepare the rest of the Marine Corps to integrate cyber effectively.
Moreover, the Marine Corps created a cyber career field earlier this year and requested 1,000 billets related to cyber/electronic warfare/information operations in the most recent budget to be better postured to fight and win in an increasingly modern battlefield.
MARFORCYBER will get around 40 percent of new career field designees to work on the defensive side with just a couple going to the offensive teams, Reynolds said.
The Marines have recognized that cyber is going to be a foundational capability in the future with some ingrained organizational structure behind it.
“We just really have to get more return on investment ... and what we want to be able to do is continue to increase our proficiency and skills,” Reynolds said. “When you're constantly moving people out of the cyber workforce, you're starting over again all the time. That doesn't work.”
Currently, the Marines deployed on the cyber mission force — a joint force that makes up U.S. Cyber Command's cyber warrior cadre — are lateral moves, Reynolds said, or they're working as signals intelligence Marines and they're just in and out of cyber.
While the total number of forces on the CMF will stay the same, the types of Marines filling those roles will change, a MARFORCYBER spokeswoman told Fifth Domain. When a communication officer currently working on a team rotates, that billet will be coded as a cyberspace officer and will be filled only by someone in the new cyber career field, they added.
The model going forward should be building a “foundation from the ground up of defensive cyber and then maybe start building some of our offensive capability from the defense while we're still flowing SIGINT through the offensive teams,” Reynolds said.
This move comes as the Marines, as well as the other services, are going through a bit of a culture shock when it comes to introducing these nontraditional skill sets into the ranks.
“I think the commandant is willing to challenge every assumption we've ever made about how we treat these MOS,” Reynolds said.
In fact, during recent congressional testimony, Reynolds noted that the commandant often points out “we may end up with a platoon of warrant officers, and that's got to be okay with us.”
https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/marine-corps/2018/04/05/marines-cyber-forces-to-grow/
26 septembre 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Cloudflare uncovers SloppyLemming, an India-linked threat actor targeting Asian countries with sophisticated cyber espionage techniques and cloud-base
11 février 2021 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to create an air-launched drone that carries its own smaller weapons, a concept that brings to mind a lethal Russian nesting doll packed with missiles. If successful, the new UAV — called LongShot — could allow high-value manned aircraft like fighters and bombers to hang back at standoff distances while the drone moves forward and strikes multiple targets using its own air-launched weapons. DARPA announced Feb. 8 that it had awarded contracts to General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the first phase of the program, during which the companies will create preliminary designs. “The LongShot program changes the paradigm of air combat operations by demonstrating an unmanned, air-launched vehicle capable of employing current and advanced air-to-air weapons,” said Lt. Col. Paul Calhoun, a program manager for DARPA's Tactical Technology Office. “LongShot will disrupt traditional incremental weapon improvements by providing an alternative means of generating combat capability.” Under the LongShot program, DARPA plans to explore multimodal propulsion, which the organization sees as key to the drone's concept of operations. “An air system using multi-modal propulsion could capitalize upon a slower speed, higher fuel-efficient air vehicle for ingress, while retaining highly energetic air-to-air missiles for endgame target engagement,” the Defense Department stated in fiscal 2021 budget material. That way, the UAV gets the benefit of being able to traverse longer ranges, while the weapons it launches have a higher probability of destroying their intended targets. If LongShot's development is successful, the weapon could “significantly” extend the range at which a manned aircraft can engage a target while also reducing the risk to human pilots, DARPA stated in a news release. DARPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the value of the contracts or the future schedule of the program, although it noted in a release that companies will build and fly full-scale demonstrators during a future phase of the program. During those tests, companies will prove their LongShot UAVs are capable of controlled flight and launching weapons. DARPA started the LongShot program in FY21, requesting $22 million to begin conceptual design work. According to budget documents, the LongShot UAV could be either launched from an external hardpoint on a fighter or the internal bay on a bomber. Both the Air Force and Navy could be potential future customers. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/02/09/these-three-companies-got-contracts-for-darpas-new-longshot-drone
22 novembre 2022 | International, C4ISR
Zero trust, a new cybersecurity paradigm, assumes networks are always at risk. As a result, continuous validation of users, devices and access is needed.