Election Security Update. Just ahead of the midterm elections on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that there are continued attempts to access election-related systems in the states and in “some very limited cases we have seen access but they’ve been quickly prevented or mitigated.” She told an audience at the Council of Foreign Relations on Nov. 2 that in none of these instances can the attempted cyber breaches be attributed to foreign country and that “in general,” critical infrastructures are “under constant attack and I can’t stress that enough. So what would be strange is if we didn’t see any attempts.”
DDG-77. The Naval Sea Systems Command recently awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) a $45 million contract over two unnamed competitors for FY 2019 Extended Selected Restricted Availability work on the Arleigh Burke-class USS O’Kane (DDG-77). This availability covers maintenance, modernization, and repair of the DDG-77. The award includes options that, if exercised, would raise the total contract value to $51.5 million. The work will occur at HII’s shipyard in San Diego and is expected to be finished by January 2020. Besides HII, two other shipyards operate in the San Diego harbor area that have done this kind of work in the past: General Dynamics-NASSCO and BAE Systems.
Mine Warfare. The Navy is looking to separate mine warfare (MIW) capabilities from specific platforms, Maj Gen. David Coffman, Director of Expeditionary Warfare, told reporters at a Oct. 31 roundtable. “We are not going to have the mine warfare mission area hostage to LCS as unique-only primary platforms,” Coffman said. He used the example of the Navy’s Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB), specifically the USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3) stationed in the 5th Fleet area of operations. Coffman said the ESB’s original requirement covers its use an afloat staging base with one primary mission hosting MIW or mine countermeasures (MCM) activities. Coffman said the Chief of Naval Operations intended to put new ESBs around the planet “so they’ll be out with the fleets as a high quality afloat staging base for mine countermeasures and other mission sets. But really to try to strengthen the hand of the mine warfare folks.”
…Beyond LCS. Coffman said the Navy is looking to go beyond focusing on LCS for mine warfare in their MCM modules. The Navy is moving to develop sensors and systems that are applicable to mine warfare, can be mixed with different manned or unmanned vehicles, and that are based from an LCS, ESB, ashore, or other vessels of opportunity. Coffman said the Navy will prioritize developing families of unmanned surface, undersea, and air vehicles that are not built for a specific mission set but have known parameters, capacities, and space for sensors. Then, a commander could just choose the right unmanned vehicle with the right sensors or effectors needed for the mission in a specific environment. “We are not going to have the mine warfare mission area hostage to LCS as unique, only, primary platform,” Coffman said.
…Difficult Divorce. Coffman acknowledged separating platforms from vessels will be difficult. He said MCM has historically been an under-resourced warfare area and “it does not have a strong ownership of governance in terms of people waking up every day saying, we are going to work on this.” Coffman added that the military services, Washington, Congress, and “everybody’s choking a little bit on this divorce of platforms, payloads, sensors. The system tends to like ‘I bought one of these and one of these and it does this one thing.’” While Coffman thinks that is not the right approach in mine warfare, it does not translate easily “in the rough world of the marks” to budget requests.
Wanted: Space Simulators. Air Force Space Command needs simulators that accurately represent the threat-based environment that operators will be seeing in space, AFSPC director of operations and communications Brig. Gen DeAnna M. Burt said Friday at a Mitchell Institute breakfast event on Capitol Hill. “Right now, our simulators … don’t consider a threat, they don’t consider this contested, degraded, operationally limited environment,” she said, dubbing the need her biggest training shortfall. Expect to see around $75 million in funds budgeted for new virtual training simulators across the FYDP, she added.
Congressman Picked For Cyberspace Commission. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) is one of three individuals named to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission that was established by the FY ’19 NDAA. The commission is intended to develop a path forward for U.S. cybersecurity policy. As a Marine, Gallagher served as a counterintelligence/human intelligence officer and deployed twice to Al Anbar Province in Iraq as a commander for intelligence teams. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) announced the commission’s members Oct. 29.
Saudi Modifications, Sustainment Contracts Continue. As lawmakers weigh whether to completely cease the approval of FMS sales to Saudi Arabia, the Air Force awarded two contracts last week for either sustainment support or contract modifications for programs based in the Gulf country. Sierra Nevada Corp. was awarded a $23 million modification to its $99 million contract for the Saudi King Air 350 program. Work entails modifying two King Air 350 extended range aircraft with ISR/SAR capability, ground stations and one mission system trainer. Work will be performed in Hagerstown, Md., and is expected to be completed by May 2020. Meanwhile, Boeing was awarded over $14 million for the F-15 Royal Saudi Air Force aircraft maintenance debrief system, and will provide administration and support to Riyadh’s F-15 sustainment program. Work will be performed in Saudi Arabia and is expected to be completed in late 2023.
Perspective. Federal indictments handed down last week against Chinese intelligence officers for stealing data from private sector computers in the U.S. and abroad on turbofan engines used in commercial planes combined with other recent economic espionage actions by China demonstrate that the U.S. is in a “massive” espionage war with China that can’t be settled in traditional ways, James Lewis, a cyber security and foreign policy expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an analysis published on Nov. 2. He said China’s espionage against the U.S. is “unprecedented” and shows that country “is still reliant on Western technology.” He said recalling ambassadors and sanctions won’t work and military power will be largely ineffective in countering China’s espionage transgressions. Instead, Lewis argued, the U.S. has to create an international partnership that brings “diplomatic and economic coercion to compel change” in China’s behavior.
Biometric Rally. Next spring the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology branch will host its second Biometric Technology Rally in as many years, inviting industry to its Maryland Test Facility to demonstrate face, iris and fingerprint capture systems and biometric matching algorithms against defined performance targets for high-throughput use cases such as checkpoints. “The 2018 rally established very aggressive objective and threshold metrics for speed, performance and user satisfaction,” said Arun Vemury, director of S&T’s Biometrics and Identity Technology Center. “While some rally participants met a few criteria, no single commercial offering was able to meet all objectives.”
Cyber Help. The Coast Guard’s Research and Development Center (RDC) and the Ohio National Guard have partnered to work together on cyber security efforts. “Maritime cyber security is a critical facet of our research portfolio,” said Capt. Greg Rothrock, commanding officer of the RDC. The Ohio National Guard provides the Coast Guard with “world class technical expertise that will enhance the national security research enterprise.” The Ohio National Guard has cyber security expertise in forensics, incident response, industrial control systems, lends expertise to the Ohio Cyber Range, and supplies five of the eight leadership positions in the National Guard’s annual Cyber Shield defense cyber operations exercise.
Insider Threat Framework. Amid concerns of a dynamic and evolving threat from insiders, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has produced an Insider Threat Framework to help the federal government better apply standards above the minimum to combat insider threats. The framework includes 19 maturity elements that identify a capability or attribute of an advance insider threat program to apply to various topics such as employee training and awareness, access to information, and the monitoring of user activity. “The Framework is designed to help all executive branch departments and agencies progress toward optimizing their insider threat program capabilities, recognizing that proactive insider threat programs are better postured to deter, detect, and mitigate insider threats before they reach a critical point and potentially harm national security,” said an introductory message to the framework.
New Rheinmetall Venture. German defense manufacturer Rheinmetall and electronics company Rohde Schwarz have formed a new joint venture, called RRS-MITCOS. “Rheinmetall and Rohde & Schwarz want to play a leading role in digitizing Germany’s ground forces. This major program encompasses an investment volume of several billion euros,” the companies said in a statement. RRS-MITCOS was created to compete for the Germany military’s “Digitization of Land-based Operations” (D-LBO) modernization program to outfit thousands of vehicles with new digitized technology. D-LBO also includes a component to find a new digital command system for the German Army. Rheinmetall will hold a 75 percent stake in the joint venture, with Rohde 7 Schwarz occupying the remaining 25 percent.
Military Intelligence Spending. The Pentagon on Oct. 30 announced it spent $22.1 billion on its Military Intelligence Program in fiscal year 2018. The top line budget number is an increase of $3.7 billion from the previous fiscal year. The budget number includes the base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations spending. Department of Defense officials said details on how the money was spent will remain classified due to national security concerns.
PSC Cloud Comments. Professional Services Council has submitted recommendations on the White House’s cloud computing strategy, focusing on clarifying the document’s cyber security and procurement provisions. “PSC supports ongoing efforts to adapt the federal cybersecurity framework from a network boundary or perimeter-based defense, which can hinder cloud-based technologies, to a layered security-based approach protecting data at all levels,” the trade association wrote in a statement. PSC added that the White House should be pushing agencies to greater advantage of full-service cloud technologies available in the private sector. Specific recommendations also include directing federal agencies to prioritize use of vendor-based solutions for IT services and accelerating the FedRAMP technology authorization process. Comments on the cloud strategy were due by Oct. 31.
International Harpoon. The Naval Air Systems Command recently awarded Boeing a $245 million not-to-exceed contract to procure long lead material for Harpoon full-rate production Lot 91 for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. The work will largely occur in St. Charles, Mo. (54 percent) and McKinney, Texas (23 percent) and is expected to be finished by March 2023. The full contract amount was obligated in FMS funds at award time, with none of it expiring at the end of this fiscal year. The contract was not competitively procured.
UAE THAAD. The Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin a $129.5 million noncompetitive Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) maintenance contract under a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) for the United Arab Emirates. Within the contract the company will provide maintenance and sustainment for two THAAD batteries for the UAE. This encompasses software and hardware development, contractor logistics support, engineering services, and missile field surveillance. The work will be performed in various U.S. locations and the UAE and is expected to be finished by July 2021. Only one offer was solicited and received.