Defense contractor Engility [EGL] is looking to previous experience running cyber training exercises as it considers potential bids on upcoming contracts to construct future virtualized training capabilities for cyber forces.
The Army’s National Cyber Range (NCR) and Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE) and Air Force’s Unified Platform programs offer an opportunity to build on tested cyber capabilities for future Cyber Command offensive and defensive operations, according to Scott Whatmough, senior vice president of Engility’s defense and security group.
“We’re interested in all three,” Whatmough told Defense Daily. “We bring strengths to each one of them given that we already do offensive and defensive testing for the Air Force. That gives us a fair amount of knowledge on cyber problems.”
The NCR project involves constructing new locations to test military personnel in virtualized cyber environments, and PCTE will function as a new training environment for Cyber Command’s mission forces to work on defending against simulated network threats.
Whatmough touted Engility’s previous experience constructing virtual training and live cyber exercises for the Navy as a critical piece for potentially working on NCR and PCTE.
“They’re literally going to architect this training environment from the ground up, and then go build it and deploy it. We understand the cyber element. We understand the architectural piece. And we’ve got a very strong training footprint,” Whatmough said. “So we believe we have qualifications across the spectrum of what’s going to be required.”
Lockheed Martin received a contract in February, amid increasing operational tempo, to continue work on NCR capabilities within a company-owned facility (Defense Daily, Feb. 16).
The Army plans to award contracts to multiple companies as it expands NCR to five new locations, according to Whatmough, who said Engility would consider pursuing the effort as either a prime or subcontractor.
Army officials are planning to award the first capability contracts for PCTE by the end of May, with the first delivery of training tools slated for July (Defense Daily, May 4).
“We actually do real, honest to goodness range testing on real, honest to goodness networks,” Whatmough said, pointing to previous cyber work with the Air Force that may apply to future PCTE interest. “Depending on the threat to be tested, we will stand up a customized network to run it on. And then, depending on the situation, we’ll work in the offensive and defensive testing to see whether there’s a penetration vulnerability or the effects of the offensive threat.”
The upcoming Unified Platform contract will work to build a “weapons system”-like approach for future offensive operations.
Whatmough said Engility has the capabilities and prior experience to pursue future NCR, PCTE and Unified Platform contract opportunities, but noted officials have to explore the “scalability” of its currents tools.