US develops cyber test bed

The US Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) is working on a virtual cyber test bed, dubbed USS Secure, the US Navy announced this month.

The first test exercise of USS Secure is scheduled for March.

The project includes elements from Lakehurst and Patuxent River Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) warfare centres; NAVSEA warfare centres at Dahlgren, Philadelphia, Corona, and Crane; the national cyber range, the test resource management centre, joint staff, and the navy red team.

USS Secure's ability to replicate a naval combatant in a systems environment will be tested in the upcoming exercise. The test will also determine the effectiveness of USS Secure's virtual and real systems to simulate live systems so the combatant's cyber defence capabilities can be evaluated without having an impact on real-time performance requirements.

The test aims to give a snapshot of the existing interface configuration from the adversary point of view. The results of the exercise will provide inputs for improving system defence over time. Throughout the test, The NAVSEA integrated warfare systems engineering directorate will assess the test bed's adequacy to meet cyber certifications and future cybersafe test activities.

Chuck Campbell, USS Secure project manager, said: 'USS Secure is the first collaboration among major systems commands to simultaneously join forces to address cyber problems for the navy. Follow on activities will add fidelity and representative systems into the varying enclaves to ultimately instantiate an entire strike group -- surface, subsurface, and airborne.'

He added: 'The long-term goal of USS Secure is to provide the navy with the ability to conduct system of system cyber-focused research, development, test and evaluation. We cannot afford to wait until operational testing or after a capability is fielded to expose cyber issues in our naval systems as it's too costly and time consuming to address them that late in the acquisition lifecycle.'

Naval Innovation for Science and Engineering (NISE) funds were used for the research and conceptualisation of USS Secure.