US military buys additional Trophy APS, Rafael pushes light version for Bradley and Stryker

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  19 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Germany wants its own version of DARPA, and within the year

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany — Germany Defence and Interior ministry officials are pushing for the creation of a new agency this year that will study disruptive technologies relevant to Germany's defense and security. A decision on the way forward is expected “shortly,” a Defence Ministry spokesman told Defense News on Wednesday. Planning is underway to get the green light from the Finance Ministry, a necessary step because the agency would be set up as an “in-house” limited liability corporation, according to the spokesman. If all goes according to plan, insiders believe Cabinet-level consideration of the effort could come as early as September. While there is no official word on the exact timing, the spokesman said creating the agency is firmly on the calendar for 2018. The full name for the outfit is “Agentur für Disruptive Innovationen in der Cybersicherheit und Schlüsseltechnologien,” or ADIC. Its name first popped up in the coalition-government agreement between Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and Social Democrats in March. The document postulated that the agency, overseen by the two ministries for interior and exterior security, would help ensure Germany's “technological innovation leadership.” Also requested in that document was the creation of an “IT security fund” that would help protect related key technologies. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen referred to the coming agency in a speech in May, equating its purpose to that of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, otherwise known as DARPA. She presented the idea as part of a wider plan toward deep-futures thinking on cybersecurity matters, which also includes a study program at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. Under the relatively new shift to emphasize all things cyber in the German military, the Defence Ministry's Cyber Innovation Hub, created last year, is slated to survey the domestic technology startup scene for ideas with potential military application. Asked by Defense News what status the upcoming agency will accord to the field of artificial intelligence, ministry officials responded that such projects “generally” would be eligible to receive temporary funding if they are deemed relevant to the mission. Much remains unknown about the German military's approach to artificial intelligence, famously dubbed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last year as the technology that holds the key to ruling the world. “The research area of artificial intelligence and potential applications by the Bundeswehr are being substantively reviewed,” the defense spokesman said. Whether the new ADIC or any of the existing organizations inside the Defence Ministry would get involved remains an open question, he added. Some experts fear Germany is falling behind the the United States' and China's enormous efforts in artificial intelligence, though government officials have said they believe the country's talent base and emerging policy framework can ensure success. A whitepaper released Wednesday by the Cabinet agency leading the push on AI, the Ministry of Education and Research, proclaimed the goal of making German-made AI a “seal of quality recognized all over the world.” The document will lead to a more comprehensive strategy by late November. It makes no explicit mention of any military or defense applications. Efforts already exist within the armed forces and the wider government to employ data-mining and predictive-analysis tools, which fall under the broader definition of artificial intelligence. For example, defense officials have touted experiments with a forecasting application developed to predict worldwide crises. Officials also try to play up the Bundeswehr's geekiness in its search for new recruits. A current online marketing campaign showcases the career field of a Bundeswehr University professor employing AI techniques to analyze terror attacks for patterns. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/07/18/germany-wants-its-own-version-of-darpa-and-within-the-year

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  23 mai 2024 | International, Terrestre

  Swedish army pursues four-fold artillery growth, including rocket artillery

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  30 septembre 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  The DoD needs data-centric security, and here’s why

  Drew Schnabel The U.S. Department of Defense is set to adopt an initial zero-trust architecture by the end of the calendar year, transitioning from a network-centric to a data-centric modern security model. Zero trust means an organization does not inherently trust any user. Trust must be continually assessed and granted in a granular fashion. This allows defense agencies to create policies that provide secure access for users connecting from any device, in any location. “This paradigm shift from a network-centric to a data-centric security model will affect every arena of our cyber domain, focusing first on how to protect our data and critical resources and then secondarily on our networks,” Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, said at a virtual conference in July. How does the Pentagon's AI center plan to give the military a battlefield advantage? The Pentagon's artificial intelligence hub is working on tools to help in joint, all-domain operations as department leaders seek to use data to gain an advantage on the battlefield. Andrew Eversden To understand how the DoD will benefit from this new zero-trust security model, it's important to understand the department's current Joint Information Environment, or JIE, architecture; the initial intent of this model; and why the JIE can't fully protect modern networks, mobile users and advanced threats. Evolving DoD information security The JIE framework was developed to address inefficiencies of siloed architectures. The goal of developing a single security architecture, or SSA, with JIE was to collapse network security boundaries, reduce the department's external attack surface and standardize management operations. This framework helped ensure that defense agencies and mission partners could share information securely while reducing required maintenance and continued infrastructure expenditures. Previously, there were more than 190 agency security stacks located at the base/post/camp/station around the globe. Now, with the JIE architecture, there are just 22 security stacks centrally managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency to provide consistent security for users, regardless of location. “This paradigm shift from a network-centric to a data-centric security model will affect every arena of our cyber domain, focusing first on how to protect our data and critical resources and then secondarily on our networks,” Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency and commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, said at a virtual conference in July. To understand how the DoD will benefit from this new zero-trust security model, it's important to understand the department's current Joint Information Environment, or JIE, architecture; the initial intent of this model; and why the JIE can't fully protect modern networks, mobile users and advanced threats. Evolving DoD information security The JIE framework was developed to address inefficiencies of siloed architectures. The goal of developing a single security architecture, or SSA, with JIE was to collapse network security boundaries, reduce the department's external attack surface and standardize management operations. This framework helped ensure that defense agencies and mission partners could share information securely while reducing required maintenance and continued infrastructure expenditures. Previously, there were more than 190 agency security stacks located at the base/post/camp/station around the globe. Now, with the JIE architecture, there are just 22 security stacks centrally managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency to provide consistent security for users, regardless of location. Initially, the JIE was an innovative concept that took the DoD from a highly fragmented architecture, in which each agency managed its own cybersecurity strategy, to an architecture in which there is a unified SSA. However, one of the early challenges identified for the JIE was managing cloud cybersecurity as part of the SSA. The components in the JIE — the Joint Regional Security Stacks family's internet access points and cloud access points — have traditionally focused on securing the network, rather than the data or user. As more DoD employees and contractors work remotely and data volumes increase, hardware cannot scale to support them. This has created ongoing concerns with performance, reliability, latency and cost. A cloud-first approach In response, the DoD leverages authorized solutions from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, and it references the Secure Cloud Computing Architecture guidance for a standard approach for boundary and application-level security for impact Level 4 and 5 data hosted in commercial cloud environments. The purpose of the SCCA is to provide a barrier of protection between the DoD Information Services Network and the commercial cloud services that the DoD uses while optimizing the cost-performance trade in cybersecurity. Defense agencies are now exploring enterprise-IT-as-a-service options to move to cloud, and reduce the need for constant updates and management of hardware. Through enterprise-IT-as-a-service models, defense agencies will be able to scale easily, reduce management costs and achieve a more competitive edge over their adversaries. Before the pandemic hit, defense agencies were already moving to support a more mobile workforce, where employees can access data from anywhere on any device. However, a cyber-centric military requires security to be more deeply ingrained into employee culture rather than physical protection of the perimeter. The next evolution to secure DISA and DoD networks is to embrace a secure access edge model with zero-trust capabilities. The SASE model moves essential security functions — such as web gateway firewalls, zero-trust capabilities, data loss prevention and secure network connectivity — all to the cloud. Then, federal employees have direct access to the cloud, while security is pushed as close to the user/data/device as possible. SP 800-27, zero-trust guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, provides a road map to migrate and deploy zero trust across the enterprise environment. This guidance outlines the necessary tenants of zero trust, including securing all communication regardless of network location, and granting access on a per-session basis. This creates a least-privilege-access model to ensure the right person, device and service have access to the data they need while protecting high-value assets. As the DoD transforms the JIE architecture to an as-a-service model with zero-trust capabilities, defense agencies will experience cost savings, greater scalability, better performance for the end user and war fighter, improved visibility, and control across DoD networks — and ultimately a stronger and more holistic cybersecurity capability moving forward. https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2020/09/29/the-dod-needs-data-centric-security-and-heres-why/