Cyber Incident Schema. Along with a new policy directive last week that sets out policy for how the federal government will respond to major cyber incidents, the White House has also issued a cyber incident severity schema that provides a common framework for evaluating and assessing cyber incidents so that all agencies have a common view. The schema ranks threats between Level 0, the baseline, and Level 5, the worst case.
…Color Codes. The schema is color coded. Level 5, black or emergency, means an imminent threat to wide-scale critical infrastructure services, the national government, or the lives of U.S. citizens. Level 4, red or severe, refers to an incident “likely” to cause a “significant impact” to lives, national security, foreign relations or civil liberties. Level 3, orange or high, means the threat will probably have an impact whereas the Level 2, yellow or medium, is for incidents that may have an impact. Level 1 is green or low, such as a financial crime, and is unlikely to have a national impact. Level 0 is white and refers to an “unsubstantiated or inconsequential event.”
AMDR Update. Raytheon Chairman and CEO Thomas Kennedy tells investors the An/SPY-6(V) Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) the company is developing for the Navy is nearly 80 percent complete through the engineering and manufacturing development phase. He says the radar will “soon transition to low-rate initial production and remains on track for initial delivery in 2019.” In the second quarter Raytheon delivered the first AMDR to the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range facility ahead of schedule, he says. The next-generation radar is for the Navy’s DDG-51 Flight III destroyers.
New FBI Cyber Position. In a sign of the growing cyber security threat, the FBI says it is creating a position for its first ever senior level data scientist. The data scientist will be a senior level adviser and consultant to the Cyber Division assistant director and other management. “The addition of a senior-level position within the Cyber Division is unprecedented, and we are eagerly anticipating the ways it will contribute to our mission to identify, pursue, and defeat cyber adversaries,” says James Trainor, the assistant director in the Cyber Division. “With the breadth and depth of skills and expertise we’re expecting in our candidates, this new position will have a unique opportunity to brand the FBI’s cyber program and represent the FBI through the intelligence community.”
New Cyber Firm. ThinAir Labs, a new cyber security firm that launched in Silicon Valley last week, this week will unveil its ThinAir data security solution at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas. The company says its software is the “first enterprise security solution designed to give end-users complete visibility, context and control over all the data in their organization, no matter where it goes.” ThinAir gives insight and protection against insider threats, criminal adversaries, automated data exfiltration, and human error, the company says.
F-35 Feedback. Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for U.S. Marine Corps aviation, says the service’s new Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter is proving itself to be “very effective” at destroying air and ground targets in exercises. And he believes his pilots have the same view. “I talk to my guys. If they thought the thing sucked or wasn’t good, they are not shy to tell me,” Davis says July 29 at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. “Not a one of them would go back to their other airplane. Not a one of them would go back to flying an F/A-18, Harrier or Prowler.”
Hornet Crash. The U.S. Marine Corps is investigating why a Boeing F/A-18C Hornet went down during a training mission about 10:30 p.m. July 28 near Marine Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif. The crash killed the fighter jet’s pilot, who was based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif.
Missile Defense Data. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has unveiled a facility at Fort Drum, N.Y., that can send target location updates to long-range interceptors that have been launched. Designed by Black & Veatch and built by Black Horse Group LLC under the oversight of the Army Corps of Engineers, the In-Flight Interceptor Communications Systems (IFICS) data terminal joins five other such terminals in operation at Fort Greely, Alaska; Shemya, Alaska; and Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The terminals support the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which is designed to defend the United States against long-range ballistic missiles.
Global Hawk Milestone. The Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned plane recently surpassed 200,000 flight hours, according to prime contractor Northrop Grumman. The milestone was achieved by an aircraft that landed July 21 at Grand Forks AFB, N.D. “It took us almost 15 years to get to 100,000 hours,” says Mick Jaggers, Northrop Grumman’s vice president and program manager for Global Hawk. “And then in less than 34 months, we doubled it.”
Ship Weapons. The U.S. Navy has fired a Harpoon over-the-horizon missile from a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) for the first time. The USS Coronado (LCS-4) launched the missile July 19 during the Navy’s Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise. In other ship weapon news, BAE Systems announced July 28 that it received a $245 million contract from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense to provide the gun system for the Royal Navy’s new Type 26 anti-submarine frigates.
Mad Sciences. Defense Secretary Ash Carter this week christened a technology innovation office that will focus on advances in biosciences. Carter makes clear, biotechnologies like a wearable headset that can jump start a wearer’s brainpower are coming whether the U.S. military is privy to them or not. “Biosciences, like all technologies, will be used for good and for ill,” Carter says at the opening of the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx) in Boston. “Our job is to make sure that our society is protected and our military is at the frontier of that field.”
Special Operations. While on base at Fort Bragg, N.C., this week Carter visited the secretive Joint Special Operations Command headquartered there. He met with operators recently returned from missions in Iraq and Syria and was briefed by their commanders within the operations center that was off limits to members of the press traveling with the secretary.
… Sensitive Material. A portion of the discussion focuses on what military intelligence personnel learn from 10,000 pieces of “sensitive material” collected thus far from territory recaptured from the Islamic State (ISIL). Army Col. Christopher Garver, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, explains to reporters in Washington that Iraqi and coalition troops have picked up four terabytes worth of information from the battlefields in Iraq and Syria, including thumb drives, laptops computers, text books and notebooks. “It’s that material that we’re sifting through,” Garver tells reporters via Skype from Baghdad. Important information is gleaned on how ISIL receives, assesses and deploys foreign fighters flowing into their territory, Garver says. Iraqi and coalition troops encounter booby traps like hidden improvised explosive devices retreating ISIL fighters have set to destroy such sensitive data and kill or wound advancing troops who may be looking for it, he says.
Rheinmetall Ammunition. Germany’s Rheinmetall Group won a major international ammunition order booked in the second quarter of 2016 worth over $447 million. The contract runs for seven years with an undisclosed client and undisclosed types of ammunition.
Illinois Cyber Contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a nearly $19 million cost contract for Cyber-Physical Experimentation Environment (CEER) for Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation Characterization Systems (RADICS) software system and report. The university will provide research, development, and demonstration of a CEER hardware and software system to enable RADICS research, development, testing, and evaluation. The award is the result of a competitive acquisition with 70 offers received. Fiscal 2016 research, development, test, and evaluation funds of nearly $3 million were obligated at award time. Work will be performed in Champaign, Ill. With an expected completion date of Aug. 1, 2020. The contracting activity is the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y.
Ballistic Missile Cyber Contract. The U.S. Navy awarded Lockheed Martin a cost-plus-fixed-fee $8 million modification of an earlier awarded contract for new procurement of a cybersecurity update to fleet ballistic missile unique information technology applications and information systems and high voltage detonator refresh. Navy fiscal 2016 weapons procurement funds of $7 million, fiscal 2016 operations and maintenance funds of $1 million, United Kingdom funds of $167,000, fiscal 2016 research, development, test and evaluation funds of $44,000, and fiscal 2016 other procurement funds of $39,000 were obligated on the award. Contract funds of over $1 million will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Work will be performed at Sunnyvale, Calif. (over 34.65 percent); Miamisburg, Ohio (25.18 percent); Cape Canaveral, Fla. (14.93 percent); Orlando, Fla. (8.59 percent); Silverdale, Wash. (8.35 percent); and Kings Bay, Ga. (8.30 percent). Work is expected to be finished by Dec. 31, 2018.
NROL-61. The Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) on July 28 successfully launched a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called NROL-67. Launch took place at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on an Atlas V in the 421 configuration, which features a four-meter-diameter extra extended payload fairing. ULA’s next launch is Aug. 19, a payload called AFSPC-6. Launch will take place on a Delta IV. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
SpaceX. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) recently test fired a Falcon 9 first stage that landed after a May launch, the first full duration test of a landed booster, the company says July 28 on Twitter. The milestone is another step toward the company flying a used booster.
SpaceX Crew. NASA ordered a second Commercial Crew mission from SpaceX for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS). This is the fourth and final guaranteed order NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts, according to an agency statement. Boeing received its two orders in May and December 2015 and SpaceX received its first order in November. NASA will later identify which company will fly the first post-certification mission to ISS. Each provider’s contract includes a minimum of two, and a maximum potential, of six missions. SpaceX is set to fly astronauts from American soil in 2017, company President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says in the NASA statement.
GBSD, LRSO. The Air Force on Friday released requests for proposals (RFP) for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) and Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) cruise missile, a pair of important nuclear modernization efforts. The service says in a statement up to two contract awards are expected in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017 for GBSD, the follow-on to the Minuteman III ICBM. The Air Force predicts GBSD deployment to begin in the late 2020s. The Air Force also expects up to a pair of contracts to be awarded in late FY ’17 for LRSO, the follow-on to the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM). The service expects to start fielding LRSO by 2030. The LRSO RFP is classified, according to Air Force spokesman Maj. Robert Leese.
Congress & Nukes. Five House lawmakers urged President Obama in a letter to strengthen strategic stability and reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The lawmakers urged adoption of no-first-use declaratory policy and elimination of launch-on-warning posture. The lawmakers also call DoD’s nuclear modernization plan unaffordable, unexecutable and unadvisable while calling on the United States to reduce the number of nuclear warheads held in reserve. The following lawmakers signed the letter: House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), House Appropriations energy and water development and related agencies subcommittee Ranking Member Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), HASC tactical air and land forces subcommittee Ranking Member Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) and HASC oversight and investigations subcommittee Ranking Member Jackie Speier (D-Calif.).