NewsBrief July 24, 2020

Pentagon AI team sets sights on information warfare

(C4ISRNET) About two years after it was created, the Pentagon’s artificial intelligence center is setting its sights on new projects, including one on joint information warfare. This initiative seeks to deliver an information advantage to the Department of Defense in two ways. The first is improving the DoD’s ability to integrate commercial and government AI solutions. The second is improving the standardization of foundational DoD data needed to field high-performing AI-enabled capabilities to support operations in the information environment, said Lt. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Nand Mulchandani, the JAIC’s acting director, told reporters in early July that this initiative also includes cyber operations — both broad defensive and offensive measures for use by U.S. Cyber Command. Read More

Army can’t wait for JEDI, so it’s building enterprise cloud services of its own

(Federal News Network) There’s no telling when the Defense Department might finally have its JEDI Cloud up and running. But the Army’s not waiting around for it. Instead, service IT leaders say they’re already beginning to build cloud architectures of their own that can reach from the office to the tactical edge — an major change to the Army’s fundamental technology infrastructure that is also likely to force it to rethink other aspects of its IT enterprise, including how it buys and develops software. The Army’s ambitions are embedded in the very name of the new organization the service stood up earlier this year to guide its cloud activities: The Enterprise Cloud Management Office (ECMO). Officials said even though the Army has been consuming cloud services for years — both government ones and commercial ones — there was a clear need to synchronize those activities and scale them across the entire service. Read More

How new prototyping dollars will help Army network modernization

(C4ISRNET) ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — The U.S. Army is moving forward on a number of projects to bolster its tactical network, thanks to a new pool of money dedicated to prototyping and maturing emerging technology. Additions to the Army’s tactical network will come every two years as part of modernization efforts called capability sets. Previously, prototypes of emerging technology would fall into the “valley of death,” where technology projects that didn’t have enough funding to transition into programs of record would die, said Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of the Army’s Network Cross-Functional Team. Read More

Cybersecurity for a Remote Workforce

(MITSloan) Employees are starting to return to offices as countries begin to ease COVID-19-induced lockdowns and lift stay-at-home orders. But as uncertainty related to the pandemic lingers, many organizations are choosing to maintain semi-remote, virtual workplaces over the next 12 to 18 months — and possibly for good. Facebook is allowing employees to work from home permanently, while Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify announced that it is becoming “digital by default.” Organizations have rapidly shifted to semi-remote working arrangements and thus they must be equally speedy in mitigating the cyber risks created by the expanded “attack surfaces” that have accompanied the “work anywhere” operating models. Read More

The unlikely way to improve Air Force information warfare: forums

(C4ISRNET) One way the Air Force’s new information warfare command is trying to bring together the disparate parts of the organization is through forums where leaders put representatives from different components in the same room. Sixteenth Air Force/Air Forces Cyber, created in October, combined what was previously known as 24th and 25th Air Force. The move placed cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and weather capabilities under one commander, serving as the Air Force’s first information warfare entity. Read More

AFRL tests cruise missile prototype Gray Wolf

(Space War) The 416th Flight Test Squadron recently completed a round of tests of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s “Gray Wolf” prototype cruise missile at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Gray Wolf is a DoD-directed prototype production and demonstration of low-cost, subsonic and networked collaborative cruise missiles. The missiles are designed to launch in a swarm to target enemy integrated air defense threats. “Gray Wolf is a science and technology demonstration effort, intended as a proof of concept program,” said Conor Most, 416th FLTS Flight Test Engineer. Read More

Pandemic Likely to Delay New Aircraft Developments for Years

(AIN Online) The Covid-19 pandemic downturn will delay any major developments for new aircraft by at least three to four years while the commercial aircraft manufacturing and airline sectors focus on recovery, leading commercial aviation executives believe. Even then, derivatives of existing aircraft appear more likely unless “disruptive” technologies come to fruition. Speaking during an FIA Connect 2020 webinar titled “Commercial Aircraft: the Next Generation” Wednesday, Embraer Commercial Aviation president and CEO Arjan Meijer characterized both the OEMs and airlines as “patients” that need to recover over the next several years and said he doesn’t see investments in significant capital-intensive programs during that span. Read More

Navy automates supply chain analysis for microelectronics

(fedscoop) The small computer chips in just about everything from weapon systems to IT platforms often take a long and winding supply chain journey before joining Department of Defense networks. So the Navy recently acquired a new supply chain risk assessment tool from KSM Consulting for quicker analysis of its microelectronics and to serve as an example in monitoring broader supply chains for IT-related products. To determine if a product is safe for the Navy’s networks, analysts pore over documents that show if a company is vulnerable to adversary influence. Read More

Norfolk shipyard gets the green light to start work again after stoppage

(DefenseNews) WASHINGTON – A tiny fire and concerns over work space tidiness on board the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge triggered a stop-work order Friday at General Dynamics NASSCO in Norfolk, but the shipyard was given the go-ahead Tuesday to recommence work, Naval Sea Systems Command told Defense News in a statement. NASSCO had to demonstrate it had its act together in regards to the fire and cleanliness before it could start work again, the command said. Read More

Resetting supply chains for the next normal

(Space.com) At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, bare supermarket shelves and worldwide shortages of critical personal protective equipment made supply chains headline news. Across industries, companies had little time to address logistics disruptions, shortages of parts and materials, and sudden swings in demand. That required many organizations to rewire their supply chains at short notice—all while keeping their people safe and complying government policies designed to slow the spread of the virus. Now, as businesses embark on the journey to recovery, supply-chain leaders are telling us that they have no intention of returning to the status quo ante. In the second quarter of 2020, we surveyed 60 senior supply-chain executives from across industries and geographies, asking them about the impact of the pandemic on their operations and their future plans to make supply chains far more flexible and agile. Read More