30 août 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Andrew Chuter
LONDON — Britain is moving toward launching its own satellite navigation system in a response to moves by the European Union to freeze it out of the Galileo constellation over the country's divorce from the EU.
The Conservative government in London announced Aug. 29 it was setting aside £92 million (U.S. $119 million) to undertake an 18-month study looking at the feasibility of designing and developing an alternative to the Galileo satellite system.
The move is the latest development in a growing row between Britain and the EU after Brexit negotiators in Brussels told their U.K. counterparts they would only be allowed standard, third-party access to Galileo and would not receive data from the system's Public Regulated Service — an encrypted navigation service primarily designed for military users and resistant to jamming, interference and spoofing.
The Brexit squabble has also snared Britain's fast-growing space industry, which has been excluded by the EU from bidding for further Galileo-related contracts.
Paul Everitt , the CEO of ADS, the lobby group representing the U.K. space and defense industries, said the space industry here has played a “key role in creating the Galileo program, from early pathfinder spacecraft more than a decade ago, to encryption and ground control operations.”
“The government's new investment to develop a national satellite navigation system, to make sure valuable U.K. capability continues to be supported, irrespective of the outcome of Brexit negotiations, is very welcome,” Everitt said.
The British announcement comes just days after a European Space Agency rocket launched the last four of 26 Galileo satellites required to complete the €10 billion (U.S. $11.7 billion) satellite navigation network. Further spacecraft are scheduled to be launched as backups.
The row between London and Brussels could have wider implications for Britain's security relations with the EU, according to analyst Sophia Besch with the Centre for European Reform.
As the disagreement over Galileo gathered momentum earlier this year, the think tank tweeted: “#Galileo could set a dangerous precedent for #Brexit #defence negotiations in the future — or it could serve as a wake-up call for EU and UK negotiators argues @SophiaBesch.”
Britain has invested about £1.4 billion in the Galileo system, and industry here has been a significant provider of technology in critical areas like encryption as Europe moved to obtain autonomy in navigation satellite systems alongside rival systems owned and operated by the U.S., Russia and China.
In a July 29 statement , the British government said it wants to remain part of the Galileo program but will go it alone if it can't negotiate an acceptable agreement.
“Without the assurance that UK industry can collaborate on an equal basis now and in the future, and without access to the necessary security-related information to rely on Galileo for military functions such as missile guidance, the UK would be obliged to end its participation in the project,” the statement said.
Business secretary Greg Clark said Britain's position on Galileo has been consistent and clear.
“We have repeatedly highlighted the specialist expertise we bring to the project and the risks in time delays and cost increases that the European Commission is taking by excluding U.K. industry," Clark said. “Britain has the skills, expertise and commitment to create our own sovereign satellite system, and I am determined that we take full advantage of the opportunities this brings.”
The UK Space Agency is leading the study-phase work supported by the Ministry of Defence.
Britain is due to lay out its wider plans for military space later this year when Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson is due to publish the long-delayed defense space strategy.
The British government announced at the Farnborough Air Show last month that it is investing in building a space port in Scotland to launch spacecraft.
Williamson, who is currently embroiled in a bitter fight with the Treasury and the Cabinet Office over the level of funding for Britain's cash-strapped military, said in a statement that the sector is one of his personal priorities.
“The danger space poses as a new front for warfare is one of my personal priorities, and it is absolutely right that we waste no time in going it alone if we need an independent satellite system to combat those emerging threats,” he said.
The cash for the satellite navigation study hasn't come from the MoD, but it has been allocated from the £3 billion Brexit readiness fund announced last year by the government.
30 novembre 2023 | International, Naval
The new legislation motivates “the right people and programs at the Pentagon to deploy needed strategies in a transformative way,” said Rep. Darrell Issa.
17 décembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Geoff Ziezulewicz The Army, Navy and Missile Defense Agency are failing to take basic cybersecurity steps to ensure that information on America's ballistic missile defense system won't fall into nefarious hands, according to a Defense Department Inspector General audit released Friday. Investigators visited five sites that manage ballistic missile defense elements and technical information, but the names of the commands were redacted in the publicly released report. “The Army, Navy and MDA did not protect networks and systems that process, store, and transmit (missile defense) technical information from unauthorized access and use,” the declassified report states. Such inadequacies “may allow U.S. adversaries to circumvent (missile defense) capabilities, leaving the United States vulnerable to missile attacks,” the report states. They found officials failed to employ safeguards familiar to most people online in 2018, the latest development to raise questions about the U.S. military's cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Among the shortcomings: Administrators for classified networks had no intrusion detection and prevention systems in place to watch for cyberattacks, much less stop them, according to the report. At one site, officials said they had requested to purchase those cyber safeguards in December 2017 but nine months later it still hadn't been approved. “Without intrusion detection and prevention capabilities, (the site) cannot detect malicious attempts to access its networks and prevent cyberattacks designed to obtain unauthorized access and exfiltrate sensitive (missile defense) technical information,” the report states. Officials also failed to patch system flaws after receiving vulnerability alerts, one of which had first been identified in 1990 and had still not been fixed by April. Another vulnerability that could be exploited by an attacker was first identified in 2013 but also was never pathced, according to the report. “Countless cyber incident reports show that the overwhelming majority of incidents are preventable by implementing basic cyber hygiene and data safeguards, which include regularly patching known vulnerabilities,” the IG report states. “(Missile defense) technical information that is critical to national security could be compromised through cyberattacks that are designed to exploit these weaknesses.” Some facilities failed to force employees to use common access cards, or CAC, when accessing the classified system, a basic cybersecurity practice known as multi-factor identification. Instead, officials were able to access the sensitive information using just a username and password, the report states. Hackers use phishing and other tactics to exploit passwords and gain access to such systems. New hires are supposed to be allowed network access without a card for only their first two weeks on the job. But IG investigators found users on the systems without CAC cards for up to seven years. At one site, a domain administrator never configured the network to allow only CAC holder access. “Allowing users to access networks using single factor authentication increases the potential that cyber attackers could exploit passwords and gain access to sensitive (missile defense) technical information,” the report states. Investigators also found unlocked server racks at some locations, another key vulnerability to insider snoopers. “The insider threat risk necessitates that organizations implement controls...to reduce the risk of malicious personnel manipulating a server's ability to function as intended and compromising sensitive and classified data,” the report states. External storage devices held unencrypted data and some sites failed to track who was accessing data, and why. Other administrators told investigators that they lacked the ability to record or monitor data downloaded from the network onto these devices. Unless these officials enforce the encryption of such removed data and monitor its downloading and transferring, “they will be at increased risk of not protecting sensitive and classified (missile defense) technical information from malicious users,” the report states. Investigators also found that some supposedly secure sites were failing to even lock their doors. One location had a security door that hadn't worked for years. “Although security officials were aware of the problem, they did not take appropriate actions to prevent unauthorized personnel from gaining unauthorized access to the facility,” the report states. Other sites featured no security cameras to monitor personnel movement and security officers failed to conduct badge checks. While the report makes recommendations to fix the documented problems, officials for the inspected agencies offered no comments on the non-classified draft report of the audit. Friday's scathing IG audit marked the latest in a string of reports detailing shoddy cybersecurity throughout the armed forces and defense contractors. During the same week, the Wall St. Journal reported that Chinese hackers are targeting military systems and those of defense contractors working on Navy projects. Beijing-linked cyber raids have attempted to steal everything from missile plans to ship-maintenance data in a series of hacks over the past 18 months, the Journal reports. As a result, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer has ordered a “comprehensive cybersecurity review” to assess if the Navy's cyber efforts “are optimally focused, organized, and resourced to prevent serious breaches,” spokesman Capt. Greg Hicks said. The review will also look at authorities, accountability and if the efforts reflect and incorporate government and industry best practices, he said. “Secretary Spencer's decision to direct a review reflects the serious to which the DoN prioritizes cybersecurity in this era of renewed great power competition,” Hicks said. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/12/14/audit-finds-cyber-vulnerabilities-in-us-missile-defense-system
14 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Steve Trimble The U.S. Air Force has commissioned a flying testbed aircraft to test the avionics system and software for the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber, a senior official said on Aug. 13. The first B-21 test aircraft is still being assembled in Palmdale, California, but the flying testbed allows the stealth bomber program to “buydown risk,” said Randall Walden, director of the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office, which is managing the program. “We have a flight test aircraft that we've been hosting some of these subsystems on,” Walden said. “We're doing it kind of in a parallel approach, working out some of the bugs with the software as well as the subsystems.” Walden, speaking to the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, did not identify the flying testbed, but his remarks come two months after the appearance of a green Boeing 737 owned by the Air Force with registration N712JM. The Lockheed Martin F-35 program also used a 737 to check out avionics and mission systems before test flights of the stealth fighter started in 2006. “When you can buydown risk with subsystems on even another platform, no matter what it is like you get into the air and use some of the software and work those bugs out it goes a long way,” Walden said. The Air Force expects to field the B-21 in the mid-2020s, about a decade after awarding the engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop in 2015. The development program remains on track, but Walden is eager to begin testing as soon as possible. “All of the tough critical designs, all of the hard engineering, is behind us,” Walden said. “I know we're not going to be immune from design flaws. We're going to have to work through those, and we're doing some of that today. I want to find out what those design deficiencies are as fast as I can to get on with the solution.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/aircraft-propulsion/b-21-avionics-testbed-aircraft-now-operating-usaf-official-says