How Will the F-35 Defend Enemy Attacks?

by Kris Osborn

What systems and platforms need to be examined and protected, service leaders said.

Cybersecurity for the Air Force is no longer mostly restricted to IT but now also focuses on large platforms and networked weapons systems, Peter Kim, the Air Force’s Chief Information Security Officer, said Dec. 13, at an Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) event in Northern Va.

While Kim did not go into detail regarding the technical cybersecurity specifics of large platforms, he did cite the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as an example of a system increasingly cyber “networked” and need of strong cyber defenses.

“We need to focus on cyber defense and cybersecurity beyond what we have traditionally done,” Kim said. “Threats are changing, and this is not the environment we grew up in. How do we approach the domain of cyberspace beyond what we are thinking about with IT?”

It is important to approach cyberspace as a vast interconnected domain, increasingly in need of cyber protections, he said. The fact that large weapons systems are reliant upon computer networks is well known. However, the speed with which computer technology is accelerating, and complicating the threat landscape, calls for more advanced cyber defense across a much wider spectrum of military systems.

Speaking of the need for “mission assurance” for large platforms, Kim said algorithms needed to facilitate the F-35’s much discussed “sensor fusion” require integrating disparate computer networks by synthesizing input from a range of different sensors onto a single screen for the pilot.

Computer technology increasingly organizes, integrates and presents information for pilots with an improved efficiency and graphical user interface. Developers often refer to this as “easing” the cognitive burden so that the dynamic human mind can better direct its energy toward tasks it is uniquely able to perform, such as problem solving.