New Cyber Advisories. A Russian government sponsored actor has been conducting cyber security attacks against U.S. state, local, territorial and tribal government networks, and aviation networks, since at least September, says an Oct. 22 joint cyber security advisory by the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The advisory alert (AA20-296A) says the advanced persistent threat (APT) actor—known variously as Berserk Bear, Energetic Bear, TeamSpy, DragonFly, Havex, Crouching Yeti and Koala—has “successfully compromised network infrastructure, and as of Oct. 1, 2020, exfiltrated data from at least two victim servers.” Given that the activity has been targeted at state and local governments, the advisory warns of potential risk to elections information on government networks but there is “no evidence to date that integrity of elections data has been compromised.”
…Iranian Threat.
A second joint advisory (AA20-296B) says Iranian APT actors are ”likely” trying to influence the upcoming U.S. elections. “The APT actors are creating fictitious media sites and spoofing legitimate media sites to spread obtained U.S. voter-registration data, anti-American propaganda, and misinformation about voter suppression, voter fraud, and ballot fraud,” the joint advisory warns. In the past, these actors typically conduct “distributed denial of service attacks, structured query language injections attacks, spear-phishing campaigns, website defacements, and disinformation campaigns,” it says.
AI Baked In. Northrop Grumman Chief Kathy Warden said a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract the company won over the summer to develop and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to existing real-time strategy games will give it a chance to develop the technology for broader applications. She adds that ultimately customers can be expected to require AI designed into products. “The Gamebreaker effort gives us an opportunity to evaluate and develop artificial intelligence technology to improve flexible planning, optimization, and discovery in products that operate in dynamic environments,” she told investors on the company’s third quarter earnings call. “Looking ahead, we believe our customers will require integrated artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in the same way as cyber resiliency is now broadly required in products and systems.”
DHS DCCO Update. The Department of Homeland Security has released a draft Request for Proposals for its Data Center and Cloud Optimization (DCCO) support services, seeking industry feedback ahead of the final solicitation, which is expected to be released in early December. The latest DHS update says that Phase 1 proposals will be due in mid-December and an award is expected in mid-March 2021. In September DHS said it expected to release the final solicitation in mid-October and award a contract in early January 2021.
COVID Spike at Civilian Nuke Agency. As with the whole country, COVID-19 hit the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) hard this week, when the agency recorded more than 100 new cases, a spokesperson said. For the week that ended Friday, 73 contractor and federal employees recovered from their bouts with the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — but the 107 new cases made for a third consecutive week in which new confirmed infections outpaced the rate at which people got well, the spokesperson said. Overall, the NNSA, which makes and modernizes nuclear warheads and bombs, has confirmed 1,008 cases of COVID-19 among its national workforce. The agency discloses only confirmed infections and recoveries, not the lost productivity caused by the disease that emerged in China last year, or its effect on the stockpile steward’s vendor base.
Algorithm Security. Purdue University, in partnership with Princeton University, is working on a new project for the Army to bolster the security of machine learning algorithms used to power autonomous systems. The five-year, $3.7 million project will look to “develop a robust, distributed and usable software suite for autonomous operations,” including a prototype system called SCRAMBLE, or short for SeCure Real-time Decision-Making for the AutonoMous BattLefield. “The implications for insecure operation of these machine learning algorithms are very dire. If your platoon mistakes an enemy platoon for an ally, for example, then bad things happen. If your drone misidentifies a projectile coming at your base, then, again, bad things happen. So you want these machine learning algorithms to be secure from the ground up,” Saurabh Bagchi, a Purdue professor and the principal investigator on this project, said in a statement.
AH-1W Retires. The Marine Corps on Oct. 19 officially retired the Bell AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter. The Super Cobra first flew in 1983 and was delivered to the Marines from 1986 through 1999, racking up over 900,000 flight hours as of August 2020. “The AH-1W Super Cobra has served admirably and leaves a remarkable legacy of on-time, on-target attack helicopter support for our Marines,” said Col. David Walsh, the Marine Corps’ program manager for Light/Attack Helicopter Programs. “Although the AH-1W chapter is closing, the AH-1Z Viper stands ready with even greater capability to support our Marines for years to come.”
Off-Road Robots. DARPA has released a Broad Agency Announcement seeking proposals to work on a new project to develop new autonomous technologies that allow unmanned vehicles to operate at greater speeds in off-road environments. The Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency, or RACER, program “will demonstrate game-changing autonomous unmanned ground vehicle mobility focused on speed and resiliency using a combination of simulation and advanced platforms,” according to DARPA. The four-year project will include developing new algorithms and running them through rigorous experiments on a variety of terrain. “DARPA will provide advanced UGV platforms that research teams will use to develop autonomous software capabilities through repeated cycles of simulations and tests on unstructured off-road landscapes,” the agency said in a statement.
F-35 Re-Use. Last year, the Aircraft Battle Damage Repair (ABDR) program office at Hill AFB, Utah acquired AF-27, an F-35 condemned after a June 23, 2014 engine fire that aborted the aircraft’s take-off, and caused more than $50 million of damage, a month long grounding of the F-35 fleet and Pratt & Whitney engine fixes. Hill AFB technicians recently reattached the wings of AF-27 after the wings had to be taken off for the aircraft to be transported to Hill in a C-17. At the time of the 2014 incident, AF-27 was flying for Eglin AFB, Fla.,’s 58th Fighter Squadron, the first to receive an F-35 in 2011. Hill’s ABDR program office is using AF-27 to help the F-35 program office develop an ABDR manual for the three F-35 variants.
Hammerhead. The Navy issued a draft Request For Proposals (RFP) for the Hammerhead mine program. Responses are due by Nov. 13. Hammerheads are being designed to deploy from unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and then detect, classify and destroy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets. A March presolicitation post said Hammerhead has an encapsulated Mk 48 torpedo effector, which would be released to acquire and engage ASW targets. The weapon is designated as a Middle Tier Acquisition Rapid Prototyping program and a Navy Maritime Accelerated Acquisition. The Navy plans to award a design and test contract for up to 30 prototypes in FY 2021 while operationally relevant prototypes would be delivered by the end of FY 2023.
ManTech Maritime. ManTech announced on Oct. 22 it received four-year $260 million task order to implement a “major technology modernization initiative” to transform mission systems in manned Navy Maritime patrol and Reconnaissance Airforce for the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division for Naval Air Systems Command PMA 290. It will specifically deploy “state-of-the-art technology solutions” for the P-3C Irion and P-8A Poseidon aircraft, the company said. The program covers quick reaction and engineering analyses for total lifecycle management, and logistical support needed to serve operational requirements. ManTech said the contract falls under the DoD Information Analysis Center’s multiple award contract vehicle from the Air Force’s 774th Enterprise Sourcing Squadron that aims to develop and create new knowledge for the Defense Technical Information Center repository.
Modly Speaks. Former Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told Forbes this week the Battle Force 2045 plan Secretary of Defense Mark Esper outlined earlier this month came after he sidelined the Navy in planning the future fleet. He said it started in February when Esper held a private meeting with National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien to discuss naval strategy and shipbuilding “but no one from the Navy to include myself, the CNO, the Commandant, or any senior three-star involved in developing the shipbuilding plans budget were invited.” Then, after the plan was finished, Modly said shipbuilding executives were briefed without any Navy officials.
…No 355 Plan. Modly said in the first three years of this administration the Defense Department and Navy did little to move beyond 300 ships beyond broad statements. “It was a goal written into law and it had the President’s endorsement during the campaign, but there was neither tangible funding, nor a real plan to get there in a reasonable timeframe,” Modly said. He also was skeptical of increasing the fleet size without increasing the Navy’s topline budget. “The Navy needed more topline to be able to grow the fleet beyond 300 ships or so. I had this conversation with Secretary Esper about Navy topline several times, and his response was, ‘well, Tom, where am I going to get the money? Who am I going to take it from?’ I was tempted to say ‘the Army’ as the Army topline was growing and the Navy’s wasn’t.” He added his team estimated the service needs another $5 to $7 billion per year to start getting to 355 ships in 10 years but once the fleet grew it would soon need $20 billion a year to man and maintain the extra ships.