Air Force Intensifies Cyber Security With Large Weapons Systems

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By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) Years ago, a former Air Force Chief Information Security Officer Mr. Peter Kim clearly explained that cybersecurity, data management and processing and information management has migrated far beyond the world of IT to encompass larger weapons platforms, combat networking security and AI-enabled data analysis.

What may have previously been thought of as primarily fundamental to IT, data systems, servers, cloud migration and computer-based cybersecurity innovation has in recent years exploded to increasingly incorporate a massive sphere of additional technologies.

Flying Computer

This may seem self-evident enough and have been known for many years, as the F-35 has come to be known as a “flying computer,” unmanned systems perform high-speed data processing and “transmission” from the point of collection, and multiple nodes across a joint-multidomain theater now rely upon a larger sphere of transport layer technologies in need of security such as software programmable radio, wireless RF guidance systems, GPS transmissions and even emerging optical forms of data transit.

This means larger platforms such as stealth bombers, tanks and Navy ships are not only war platforms but “nodes” within a larger meshed network through a joint force. This is the conceptual foundation of the Pentagon’s fast-evolving Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort, which not only relies upon high-speed, accurate organization and transmission of data but naturally must also secure and “harden” that data.

This fundamental principle, challenge or predicament one might say, has not been lost on the Air Force, as increased cyber reliance introduces new, potentially unanticipated vulnerabilities as well. This is part of why the Pentagon is working quickly on information assurance technologies and building in redundancies through things like large numbers of Medium-and-Low-Earth Satellite launches. Should one node or method of transmission be destroyed or disabled, there will be others to sustain operations.

Years ago, the Air Force sought to jump in front of this by announcing and implementing a 7-point cyber resilience plan aimed at anticipating and thwarting or fending off cyber instructions. The plan, outlined years ago by former Air Force Commander of Air Force Materiel Command Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, called for a number of key initiatives to “bake in” cyber protections during early phases of weapons development. Much of this involved attempted “mock” cyber attacks and various efforts to penetrate sensitive guidance systems and communications networks for the specific purpose of “hardening” them to safeguard information.