US Space Force increases efforts to plug training capabilities gaps
The service has been seeking simulation and emulation solutions capable of reproducing multiple in-orbit threats.
The number of 'highly covert and targeted' cyber warfare attacks against defence and national security organisations around the world cannot be estimated, according to a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAE Systems.
Speaking at DSEi on 15 September, Henry Harrison, technical director at Detica, said the point of a covert attack was to evade detection. Acknowledging the 'Stuxnet Incident' which he said was 'widely believed' to have comprised an effort to cause disruption to uranium centrifuges in Iran, Harrison admitted: 'We don't know how many more [attacks] there have been.'
Highlighting the wide array of cyber attacks, which can range from visible to covert missions, Harrison described attackers' objectives to disrupt, manipulate and thieve information. 'These are the things you might want to do in cyber space,' he said.
Highly covert targeted attacks, he continued, comprised military attack, hacktivism, extortion, terrorism and cyber espionage - the last of which he described as being 'rife' and 'less reported'.
A small number of reported incidents is blamed on the 'Targeted Attack Iceberg' which comprises reported, unreported and undetected incidents.
'Cyber espionage may be more significant than you may be aware of. Defence and national security organisations around the world are affected by this. What is really significant is that the problem has grown,' Harrison continued.
Referring to the UK's National Security Strategy which highlighted cyber as one of four 'tier one' risks to the country and designated some £650m to the cause, he urged: There is real recognition from the government that cyber security is no longer the preserve of geeks and information technology specialists.'
The service has been seeking simulation and emulation solutions capable of reproducing multiple in-orbit threats.
The service has been conducting several acquisition and upgrading efforts involving artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve communication, data analysis and ISR systems.
The Syracuse 4B communications satellite, developed by Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, was launched last year, bolstering secure military satellite communications for the French Armed Forces. Thales has now been selected to provide terminals for vehicles.
The growing importance of space in modern warfare, advancements in satellite technology, and increasing threats from rivals like China and Russia were among the topics of a Eurosatory 2024 panel on military space operations.
AN/ARC-232A is a Starfire radio that provides VHF/UHF communications to airborne platforms and the transceiver is software-programmable, allowing for multiple waveform support as well as optional national electronic counter counter-measure (ECCM) capability.
During the 18-month period of the contract, Lockheed Martin will apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to create surrogate models of aircraft, sensors, electronic warfare and weapons within dynamic and operationally representative environments.