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Military Information Technology
October 2012 Volume 16 • Issue 9
Features
Cover / Q&A Cloud Atlas
Industry analysts are hailing the Department of Defense’s new cloud computing strategy, which highlights its potential for providing increasing capabilities in an atmosphere of budgetary constraints. By Peter Buxbaum
5
Going Global with Ka-Band SATCOM
With its advantages of reduced costs and lighter equipment, Ka-band satellite technology is drawing growing interest from military users and industry providers. By Adam Baddeley
11
Cybersecurity’s Certification Challenge
17 Colonel Michelle Nassar Chief, COMSATCOM Center Defense Information Systems Agency
Requirements for information security certification for IT professionals raise challenges and opportunities for the military and contractors. By Karen E. Thuermer
21
Departments Cyberspace and the Law
In a recent address, Rear Admiral Margaret Klein, chief of staff of U.S. Cyber Command, explored the gap between cyber-technology and its still-evolving legal and doctrinal aspects.
24
2
Editor’s Perspective
4
Program Notes/People
14
Data Bytes
27
Resource Center
Industry Interview
28 Chris Petersen Chief Technology Officer and Founder LogRhythm
Military Information Technology Volume 16, Issue 9 • October 2012
The Voice of Military Communications and Computing Editorial Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Adam Baddeley • Peter Buxbaum Cheryl Gerber • Karen E. Thuermer
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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE Especially in times of fiscal austerity, public-private partnerships seem like an excellent way to achieve mutual goals—of which government and industry have many in the defense arena and elsewhere. In the real world, though, they are tricky. A government/industry alliance developed outside the traditional framework of contracting and procurement rules may look like a great thing to participants, and offer benefits to the nation. But it may appear differently to companies not included in the agreement, who may see it as an unfair advantage for their competitors. Because of the sensitivity of these issues, governments have evolved Harrison Donnelly strict conflict of interest rules, which are understandable but can have Editor the unintended effect of inhibiting partnerships and other alternative arrangements—or at least, making government officials leery of getting involved in something that may cause legal headaches down the road. One solution to this conundrum is to have some kind of intermediary or honest broker who can bring government and industry together while maintaining enough insulation between the two to keep everyone comfortable. In the field of science and technology, higher education research institutions are strong candidates for that role. The above thoughts came to mind recently at a well-attended ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the official opening of the National Security Solutions Center at the Virginia Tech Research Center (VTRC) in Arlington, Va. The center will enhance collaboration between L-3 and Virginia Tech in the joint development of cybersecurity solutions for military and government applications. The VTRC is also home to the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation (VT-ARC) established as a non-profit research corporation affiliated with Virginia Tech. Non-profit organizations such as VT-ARC can serve a critical role as an honest broker, leveraging the best among government, industry and academia by establishing new public/private partnership models to solve our most challenging and complex problems.
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PROGRAM NOTES
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
PEOPLE
NETCENTS-2 Awards Offer Small-Business IT Services The Air Force has announced the award of 12 contracts worth up to $960 million that will make it quicker and easier for warfighters to obtain innovative IT services and capabilities covering the full spectrum of operations and missions. The placement of task orders against the Application Services Small Business companion contract began in September. The Air Force Network Centric Solutions-2 (NETCENTS-2) team awarded its Application Services Small Business Companion contract on June 21. This is the first of two application services contracts that will be available for use by the Air Force (the other is a full and open competition still in source selection). The contracts have an aggregate ceiling of $960 million, with a three-year base ordering period and four 12-month options. The multiple award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts were awarded to 12 small businesses. The contract awardees are: ActioNet, Array Information Technology, Datum Software, Digital Management, Diligent Consulting, Diversified Technical Services, DSD Laboratories, Exeter Government Services, Excellus Solutions, IndraSoft, Segue Technologies and SI Systems Technologies. “This mandatory contract is a significant opportunity for small businesses to support Air Force information technology requirements,” said Denise Baylor, the director of small business programs for the Air Force program executive officer for business and enterprise systems. “As a whole, the NETCENTS-2 strategy shows a commitment to maintaining a viable small business industrial base for future Air Force needs.” The NETCENTS-2 Application Services acquisition provides a vehicle for customers to access a wide range of services such as sustainment, migration, integration, training, help
4 | MIT 16.9
desk support, testing and operational support. Other services include, but are not limited to, exposing data from authoritative data sources to support web-services or service oriented architecture constructs in Air Force enterprise environments The services and solutions delivered under NETCENTS-2 in support of Air Force operations will be subject to the oversight of an Air Force enterprise level governance structure and set of processes. The governance processes will employ systems engineering fundamentals, ensure adherence to the Air Force enterprise architecture, and be implemented along with the normal reviews in the acquisition process. Further clarification of the governance structure is explained in the Application Services user’s guide. The Application Services contract is mandatory for Air Force use. Use of the contract may be available to Department of Defense and other federal agencies when it is related to requirements for interoperability with Air Force capabilities, supports Air Force IT infrastructure, applications, or operations, supports host-tenant arrangements involving Air Force units, or is in support of joint operations and solutions. The Application Services contracts are one of seven sets of NETCENTS-2 IDIQ contracts that include systems sustainment and development, migration, integration and net-centric data services. These contracts replace and add to the Air Force’s existing NETCENTS contracts. Their combined ceiling is $24.2 billion, of which $11 billion will be available to small businesses through small-business-only competitions and small-business subcontracting requirements. Once fully awarded, the NETCENTS-2 contracts will be the Air Force’s primary source of netcentric and IT products, services and solutions.
Maj. Gen. Mark S. Bowman
Army Major General Mark S. Bowman has been nominated for the rank of lieutenant general and for assignment as director for command, control, communications and computers/cyber, and chief information officer, J-6, Joint Staff. Henry Sienkiewicz has been assigned as vice chief information assurance executive, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Fort Meade, Md. He will be replaced as DISA chief information officer by David Bennett. ManTech International has named Fleetwood Lilley vice president of contracts of its Mission, Cyber, and Intelligence Solutions group.
Robert K. Ortberg
Rockwell Collins has appointed Robert K.
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Ortberg as the company’s president. He joins Clayton M. Jones, who continues as chairman and chief executive officer, in the newly formed Office of the Chief Executive. In addition, the company named Philip J. Jasper executive vice president and chief operating officer of Government Systems. LogRhythm, a provider of cyber-threat defense, detection and response, has appointed Harjot Panesar as its new channel marketing manager. Panesar’s primary duty will be to build on the success of LogRhythm Connect, LogRhythm’s recently launched channel program. CACI International has appointed Garnett R. Stowe Jr. as senior vice president and division group manager within the company’s National Solutions Group. He will be responsible for national-level, Department of Defense, and federal civilian sector intelligence programs Blue Coat Systems, a Web security and WAN optimization provider, has named Dr. Hugh Thompson as senior vice president and chief security strategist.
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Cloud
Atlas
Demonstrating that it will not be left behind what many analysts call the most important phenomenon in information technology today, the Department of Defense has released a cloud computing strategy that highlights its potential as a platform for providing increasing capabilities in an atmosphere of budgetary constraints and stricter financial oversight. The strategy also recognizes the growing cybersecurity threat that must be dealt with when migrating to the cloud and lays out a transformation strategy that proceeds in stages—an approach hailed by experts in the field. Organizations in government and the private sector are showing increased interest in cloud computing to help them reduce costs and increase agility. Not everyone agrees that the financial benefits of cloud computing are at the core of its value. But with today’s atmosphere of budget cuts, industry observers say that selling cloud computing as a cost reduction strategy will be the most promising approach to the federal market. Because cloud services often involve different organizations sharing IT infrastructures, the trend poses significant challenges for enterprises that must safeguard information assets. It is vital that DoD take a hard look at what systems and applications are—and are not—suitable for migration to the cloud, analysts urge. DoD’s overarching initiative for achieving improved mission effectiveness and cybersecurity is the Joint Information Environment (JIE), which is envisioned in the strategy document as “a robust and resilient enterprise that delivers faster, better informed collaboration and decisions enabled by secure, seamless access to information regardless of computing device or location.” The DoD Enterprise Cloud Environment is seen as “a key component to enable the department to achieve JIE goals.” The DoD cloud computing strategy is perhaps the logical extension of the department’s long-sought goal of moving away from duplicative and costly application silos to a state where information is available across the enterprise—when, where and by whom it is needed. www.MIT-kmi.com
Industry analysts hail DoD strategy for migrating by stages to cost-saving cloud computing. By Peter Buxbaum, MIT Correspondent
“The DoD chief information officer (CIO) is committed to accelerating the adoption of cloud computing within the department and to providing a secure, resilient enterprise cloud environment through an alignment with departmentwide IT efficiency initiatives, federal data center consolidation, and cloud computing efforts,” the document states. “Detailed cloud computing implementation planning has been ongoing and informs the JIE projected plan of actions and milestones in capabilities engineering, operation and governance efforts.”
Cloud Sprawl “The key purpose for issuing the cloud strategy was to wrap some formal governance on how to deploy cloud services,” commented Sonya Cork, vice president, DoD and international, Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “They are saying that this is where and how they are going to access, use and deploy IT services, and this is where they are going in the future.” In Cork’s view, another key element of the strategy is to make sure that DoD doesn’t simply replace data center sprawl with cloud sprawl. “There are thousands of data centers out there,” she said, “and lots of times they can’t talk to each other because they operate on different architectures and off different standards. DoD needs to wrap some set of guidelines on the use of cloud computing, or otherwise, it will defeat the purpose. Especially when you are talking about a mobile workforce, governance and standardization of security are critical. For the military, the purposes should be to be more collaborative and agile, and to facilitate the move to a more mobile environment.” The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) has been established to mitigate the cybersecurity, continuity of operations, information assurance and resilience issues associated with cloud computing. The job of FedRAMP “is to establish a standard approach to assess and authorize cloud computing services, and define requirements for the continuous auditing and monitoring of cloud computing providers,” according to the strategy. MIT 16.9 | 5
The staged approach being taken toward the eventual cloud transformation starts with the consolidation of data centers and network infrastructure, efforts that are already well underway. Several of those consolidated data centers will be designated as core, around which a DoD cloud environment will be built. The DoD enterprise cloud environment will include separate implementations and data exchanges on NIPRNet, SIPRNet, and the Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information domain. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) will act as the department’s enterprise cloud service broker, providing a focal point for enterprise cloud governance and managing the use, performance and synchronized delivery of cloud service offerings,” the strategy says. “The broker will make it easier, safer and more productive for DoD consumers to discover, access and integrate cloud services to support their mission.”
Maria Horton
mchorton@emesec.net
Cloudy Definition The definition of the term cloud computing, as with many other IT buzzwords, is not entirely clear, noted Paul Christman, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Quest Software Public Sector. “We look at cloud as elastic compute resources available on demand in a pay-as-you-go fashion,” Christman said. “The idea is not to define requirements for computing resources, but to define business objectives and to let the resources follow. Users shouldn’t have to care what brand of storage is being used or what email software is deployed. They just care that it is there. The elasticity of cloud computing means that it is responsive. It expands and contracts to meet needs.” “What we are seeing to this point is that many DoD components are putting a toe in the water of cloud computing,” said Maria Horton, a former CIO of the U.S. Naval Medical Center and currently CEO of EmeSec. “We have yet to see how well they are doing at things like protecting privacy data.” “DoD, just like every agency, is being squeezed by the reality of budget cuts,” said Kevin Jackson, general manager for cloud services at NJVC and a prominent cloud computing advocate. “One of the big challenges is the heritage of each of the services having autonomy with their IT infrastructures. In the end, the services will be forced to work together to develop strategies for shared IT services, and that is synonymous with cloud computing.” Many organizations cite cost savings as the most immediate benefit of cloud computing, with the value proposition being that cloud services offer lower IT capital expenditures and operating costs, ondemand capacity with self-service provisioning, and pay-per-use pricing models for greater flexibility and agility. The service provider passes on savings achieved by economies of scale by providing a standardized set of computing resources to a large base of customers. “DoD is currently incurring the costs of maintaining different platforms,” said Stacey Brooks, a risk management specialist for federal IT provider CCSi who works in the information assurance division of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “Cloud computing will allow DoD to cut down on the different hardwares and technologies it has to maintain and the personnel to maintain them.” “DoD needs to come up with efficiencies,” said Nick Combs, chief technology officer of EMC’s federal division. “Ten-plus years of war have built systems that can’t be sustained within the baseline defense budget, so they have to be consolidated. A lot of applications can be moved to the cloud. That will force the services to look at redundancies and hopefully they will be motivated to make some hard choices.” 6 | MIT 16.9
Paul Christman
In the current fiscal environment, cost reduction must be the key rationale for adopting cloud computing, according to Keith Lowry, chief technology officer at QBE. “The flexibility of being able to grow and contract resources as required must come second to budget constraints right now,” he said. “Anything that doesn’t have an immediate return on investment will be difficult to implement in the current budget-cutting environment.” But not everyone agrees with that assessment. While cloud computing may have to be sold as a cost-cutting initiative, the long-term picture shows flat costs with increased levels of services, according to Christman. “There are other advantages of cloud computing and better metrics by which to measure its success,” he said. “Among these are better agility, resiliency recoverability and uptime. Operational costs can be converted to innovation costs so that you end up getting better IT at the same cost.”
Step by Step Christman agrees with the stepby-step approach to migrating toward the cloud suggested in the DoD strategy. “You can’t skip steps. Infrastructure optimization and data center consolidation are evolutionary steps toward adopting cloud computing,” he Kevin Jackson explained. “Consolidation streamlines kevin.jackson@njvc.com the infrastructure and reduces administrative costs by achieving economies of scale through standardization. Once data centers are standardized and optimized, the next step is to move toward more elastic cloud computing but you can’t do that until you have laid the foundation.” Some DoD systems and applications are stronger candidates for the cloud than others. “Back office and business applications are easier moved Stacey Brooks to the cloud than operational and missbrooks@ccsin.com sion types of applications,” said Mike Mikuta, vice president for technology strategy, cloud and mobile at DRC. “Any unclassified system could be considered to go to the cloud,” said Brooks. “Migrating and consolidating day-to-day applications like human resources can save the department a great deal in hardware and software costs.” “All the armed services need websites,” said Jackson. “They all have recruiting operations that use some sort of customer relationship www.MIT-kmi.com
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management software. These are many candidates for migration to the commercial cloud, including commodity services like storage that could be aggregated and migrated. Many military bases are being consolidated into joint bases. These would be natural consolidates for aggregated storage and compute services on the cloud.” “A lot of legacy applications need to be transformed before they are transferred to the cloud,” noted Combs. “Some service-specific applications won’t lend themselves to be migrated. Very heavy applications would make for efficient utilization of cloud resources.” Many applications will need to be rewritten to accommodate the parallel computing model typical of the cloud, noted Bryan Tower, senior software architect at Applied Technical Systems. “Most cloudbased applications use distributed file systems or databases to store the data,” he said. “Different distributed databases have different properties and guarantee different levels of consistency for writing or reading data. Choosing the right file system for a reconstructed cloud application is not an easy problem to solve and requires a lot of consideration.” Some applications have been operating disconnected from the general DoD enterprise, and probably will continue to do so. “Some capabilities at the tactical edge will probably not make it to the cloud,” said Combs. “It’s a great idea to connect every warfighter to the cloud. But that is only as good as their ability to communicate, which is often not possible the tactical edge. Some very sensitive intelligence applications are also probably not suitable for the cloud.” Mission critical systems, whether in DoD or elsewhere, are never candidates for the cloud, according to Cork. “Some applications will always be standalone,” she said. “There are also instances, such as systems and applications that are accessed by small numbers of people, where it will never make financial sense to move them to the cloud.”
Security Risks Concerns about security and data privacy are the key barriers to the adoption of cloud computing. The IT research firm Gartner has identified several areas of security risk associated with enterprise cloud computing, including those associated with access privileges, data privacy, segregation, and restoration considerations, and monitoring and reporting capabilities. “Identity and access management are the most important security considerations when it comes to cloud computing,” said Christman. “We are finding that our public sector customers underestimate these challenges.” Christman feels there has been too much emphasis on dynamic detection of external threats while not enough attention has been placed on the credentials of internal users. “We believe you have to take care of internal users first and external threats second,” said Christman. “There are a lot of glitzy detection products that are capable of finding hackers, and they get the headlines. But the more mundane infrastructure around identity and access management isn’t so splashy. It is very challenging because people are moving all the time. But IT organizations don’t get it, and the result is that they put themselves in a bad cybersecurity posture.” These concerns are magnified when the cloud infrastructure is shared across organizational lines. “It’s easy when people are all part of the same organization,” said Christman. “But when you bring in others you need to define the policies and procedures for access to information. Anything that involves third parties requires a greater level of clarity than when you do it yourself.” 8 | MIT 16.9
“One of the key issues involved with cloud computing can be grouped under the heading of business risk,” said Horton. “You need to trust that the cloud service provider is capable of providing what they say that can provide. Service level agreements need to be examined carefully and the term ‘up time’ must be clearly understood.” The FedRAMP process has third Keith Lowry party auditors such as Horton’s comkeith.lowry@qbe.net pany EmeSec examine cloud service providers for compliance with guidelines issued under the Federal Information Security Management Act, by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as others. “FedRAMP defines a set of controls for low and moderate impact level systems based on NIST baseline controls (SP 800-53) with a set of control enhancements that pertain to the unique security requirements of Mike Mikuta cloud computing,” said Horton. Final approval for cloud service providers is made by the Joint Authorization Board, which operates under the umbrella of the General Services Administration, noted Brooks. Authorization comes, he added, only after the board has examined the provider’s security posture and has seen to it that any required security mitigations or countermeasures have been implemented. “DoD has been looking at cloud computing for a long time, and it has been security issues that have held it back,” said Brooks. “But security measures put in place by cloud service providers have made DoD more comfortable.” Besides security, the other big barrier to the adoption of cloud computing is cultural. “The military services and agencies want control of their own IT budgets,” said Combs. “The cloud computing initiative is pushing CIOs to make decisions they haven’t had to make in the past.” “People also want to own their own servers,” added Lowry. “With cloud computing they can’t walk into a facility and say, ‘This is my data center.’” For all its advantages, cloud computing does not absolve system and application owners of responsibility for their IT assets. “Responsibility and accountability are the biggest issues that need to be addressed,” said Combs. “CIOs are required by statute to protect information in their environments. Just because you outsource doesn’t mean you are not responsible. It is going to be important to address responsibility issues for information and applications that go into shared clouds.”
Designated Broker DISA will be playing an important governance role in the DoD cloud strategy as the designated cloud broker. “DISA will be the governing agency that will maintain the certifications and accreditations that are an important part of cloud governance,” said Brooks. “DISA will be policing those entities authorized to provide cloud services for www.MIT-kmi.com
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the DoD by making sure they are following guidelines and by reviewing their performance periodically. The approval process as a whole will be maintained by DISA.” “The cloud broker will also be providing functionality in the cloud based on its customers’ requirements, and make the determination where in the cloud data and applications will reside, whether in a DISA data center or somewhere else,” said Lowry. “DISA is well positioned to act as cloud broker within DoD,” said Jackson. “Brokerage is the idea of providing a consistent process for interfacing with multiple cloud service providers. DoD will have the flexibility to go across multiple cloud providers instead of getting locked in to any one provider. Some providers can be chosen on the basis of their low price for some applications, while others can be chosen on the basis of their security infrastructure when that is necessary.” One of the culture changes that will need to come about with the widespread adoption of cloud computing is the reliance that DoD components will have to place in DISA even for core IT services, Jackson observed. “DISA has already done some of this with telecommunications,” he noted. “At one time the services were each responsible for their own worldwide communications requirements. That evolved into DISA providing communications for each of the services. Eventually, DISA contracted for telecommunications with providers for all of the services under a single service level agreement. The same model will be replicated with cloud computing.”
10 | MIT 16.9
What is also needed is for DISA to get more specific authority from senior leaders, Jackson continued. “The secretary of defense needs to clarify that DISA’s role applies to all cloud services, whether it pertains to infrastructure, applications, or storage. Then he needs to put some teeth into these policies on the basis of budget restrictions or limitations. The department’s cloud computing strategy is not going to work with the currently accepted culture of building service specific infrastructures for everything.” The execution of the DoD cloud computing strategy is not going to be easy or quick. “We are still at a very early stage,” said Jon Douglas, federal Jon Douglas marketing director at DataDirect Networks. “As things progress, people will jdouglas@ddn.com develop better comfort levels that their data is where it is supposed to be and that their applications are accessible. I estimate that 25 percent of the DoD IT infrastructure can be migrated to the cloud within the next five years or so.” O
For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.
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Going Global with Ka-Band SATCOM Cost and footprint advantages spur growing interest among military users and industry providers. By Adam Baddeley, MIT Correspondent With its advantages of reduced costs and lighter equipment, Kaband satellite technology is drawing growing interest from military users and industry providers. Widescale Ka-band SATCOM for military and government users is being driven in part by the advent of the Department of Defense’s combined X-band/Ka-band Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite program. The fourth satellite in that constellation, and the program’s first Block II spacecraft, was launched in January, with the 10th satellite contracted in July. The program builds on the legacy Ka-band Global Broadcast Service. Industry is also responding to the increased opportunities and demand. Inmarsat, for example, plans next year to begin rolling out a global Ka-band service designed to meet military and other requirements for on-the-move transmission and the massive bandwidth needed to transmit full motion video (FMV) files. One reason for the increasing interest is the laws of physics, which allow smaller, lighter and more affordable terminals to be used, while the location of the frequency allocation used for both commercial and military also lends itself to reduced costs. These and other reasons have resulted in adoption of Ka-band growing with a number of companies developing both terminals and services to meet growing demand. Ku is predominantly a commercial frequency band, established in the early 1990s and originally populated to deliver TV to the home because the cost of putting cable underground was prohibitively expensive. It enabled much smaller terminals than the previous C-band frequency used for satellite TV. In the 20 years since Ku was deployed in that role, the Ku frequency band is now completely filled. All the orbital slots are filled up and so are all the frequency slots. Ku provides an advantage in that there is plenty of coverage worldwide, with the opportunity to acquire it on lease basis when deployed, but it remains predominantly a commercial solution and designed for that market space.
On the Move Kai Tang, director for tactical and assured communication at Inmarsat, explained the company’s investment in its upcoming Global Xpress Ka-band satellite constellation this way: “Everywhere you look these days, we see governments moving to Ka-band because they recognize that it is the most appropriate, affordable solution to meet their future SATCOM on the move (SOTM) requirements. Whether by partnering in the WGS system or developing their own national capability, major government users worldwide have announced strategies to move to Ka, and most are looking for commercial solutions that complement those decisions. “While Ku-band has been the gapfiller for the DoD in Afghanistan and the Middle East, these legacy systems are being withdrawn,” www.MIT-kmi.com
Tang said. “We think you will see a future focus on ever-smaller terminals, more flexible end-to-end SOTM and high throughput for FMV. That is done via Ka. That is really the main reason why Inmarsat is investing well over $1 billion to be a leader in this with Global Xpress.” The first Global Xpress satellite will be launched in 2013, with full global service expected by the end of 2014. On each of the Inmarsat-5 (I-5) satellites, there will be both commercial Ka as well as high capacity military Ka-band at 30-31Ghz, with associated infrastructure that meets U.S. and allied nations’ needs. “From an end-to-end systems perspective, we are also focusing a lot of attention on cybersecurity. We have a dedicated team of folks who are intensely focused every day on the security aspects. This includes the physical security at our satellite access stations and networks handling government information, as well as the non-physical attributes of security related to information assurance. We recognize that the world is changing, and cybersecurity and network defense are becoming incredibly important to governments and government users. We are designing our end-to-end service with strict security standards than meet evolving government user requirements,” Tang said. The deployment of Ka on a worldwide basis will be revolutionary, according to Tang. “Global Xpress will bring high throughput and global mobility—‘globility’—to smaller terminals than ever before. We think this is absolutely critical to enabling military units to operate in remote locations throughout the world.” Beyond the space segment and the earth stations, Inmarsat is creating key partnerships to ensure complete end-to-end service. Tang commented, “Inmarsat sees industry partners as the key to a successful service launch and, given the substantial interest, our partners see the value proposition of Global Xpress. To better address U.S. government needs, the company stood up its own Inmarsat Government organization to be responsible for the delivery and management of all Inmarsat services including Global Xpress to the market. “Inmarsat Global Xpress’ partner, Boeing Commercial Satellite Services, has also made significant investments to position themselves as an expert channel for Global Xpress government services,” he added. “Inmarsat is also actively working with other firms who are strategically positioned in key programs and markets. In addition, Global Xpress has already announced several terminal partners, with more to be added in the coming months.” Current terminal partners include Intellian, Seatel Cobham, Thrane & Thrane, JRC, Skyware Global and Honeywell. “We never have to explain why Ka-band is the right choice for government—they are way ahead of us and making those investments already,” explained Tang. A unique advantage of Ka-band for military users is that is the only frequency where the commercial and military bands are adjacent to each other, so commercial services can transparently complement their MIT 16.9 | 11
MILSATCOM capacity. Ka-band advocates say this makes terminal development easier and more affordable, since a simplified terminal design can operate flexibly across a variety of commercial and military resources. In addition, the higher frequency Ka-band allows use of antennas that are a quarter the size of their Ku counterparts. That reduces the space and weight needed and can simplify dynamic pointing in a mobile environments. Developing a multi-band terminal using Ku for commercial and Ka for military SATCOM can be both complex and expensive. “Global Xpress offers a value proposition for DoD users to make upfront investments in simpler terminals that allow them true flexibility to operate on military systems like WGS or augment it with commercially leased SATCOM,” Tang said. “From an affordability perspective, it is helping government organizations stretch their acquisition funds by providing a true complementary solution to WGS, from user terminal to terrestrial architecture. That will translate into simpler satellite services agreement as well. “Global Xpress was designed to be the best solution for worldwide mobile users that require high throughput, flexibility and affordability. Affordability is what our government customers need, and simpler and easier is always going to translate into more affordable,” he said.
‘Megabucks for Gigabits’ ViaSat has been involved in several Ka programs over the years, enabling military users tied closely to the WGS program and other Ka capabilities. For DoD early adopters of Ka-band, they developed the Ka-STARS terminal, otherwise known as Gapfiller, the first Ka-band aperture antenna used on the WGS constellation. Under a pre-contract from ITT, ViaSat delivered 15 of these Kaband-only 9.1 m antenna systems. Other work on Ka included DoDsupported work on proving the concept for an X/Ka band feed, again to support WGS, which was delivered for testing and validation. Australia has funded an additional satellite for the WGS constellation, giving them access to the network, and has tasked the company with delivering an earth station. ViaSat is currently building that combined Ka/X band system at an undisclosed site. ViaSat also brought its own Ka-band satellite online in January, providing commercial and governmental services across North America. The system, which has capability of 140 Gbps total throughput, comprises the ViaSat-1 satellite and SurfBeam 2 ground infrastructure. The company described the system as having “more capacity than all current North American satellites combined” when it launched in October. “ViaSat is taking its experience of ground stations and ground infrastructure and pushed it out into space,” explained Kent Leka, ViaSat director of operations. “A WGS satellite has roughly a 3 Gbps capacity. The ViaSat-1 has about 140 Gbps. That is orders of magnitude more throughput. We really see that as changing SATCOM economics of what was ‘megabucks for megabits’ per second to ‘megabucks for gigabits’ per second. We are looking at it from the perspective of military Ka-band and commercial Ka-band, and how we exploit that to get more throughput down to the guy who needs it.”
Band Neutral David Myers, global commercial officer for Harris CapRock, a global provider of fully managed communications for the energy, 12 | MIT 16.9
maritime and government markets, outlined the company’s role this way: “We provide remote terminals on the ground, the space segment and we have our own global network of teleports. We land the traffic in one of our 12 self-owned and operated teleport facilities and connect directly to our customers’ networks through a global terrestrial backbone network with 83 points-of-presence.” Harris CapRock does not own or operate any satellites directly. However, it is the world’s largest single commercial buyer of space segment, and currently provides end-to-end managed communications solutions to remote sites worldwide utilizing more than 60 satellites in C-, Ku-, Ka-, L-, X- and UHF-bands. “We are technology and frequency band agnostic,” Myers said. “Our focus is delivering the right solution from an equipment set and frequency perspective to provide the data rate, throughput, network availability and reliability that our clients are looking for.” Recently, Harris CapRock completed an exhaustive engineering analysis, looking at new high throughput technologies in both Kuand Ka- frequency bands. The business reviewed antenna and equipment sets available in the market, some of which Harris makes and some of which are available from third parties, and then did trade-offs to determine when to recommend Ka or Ku. Harris CapRock evaluated eight different high-throughput Ka and Ku platforms, including two of the most widely discussed within the industry, Inmarsat Global Xpress and Intelsat EPIC. “It was interesting,” Myers observed. “Ka is being touted as the next big thing, smaller terminals and dramatically cheaper. We were biased by a lot of media hype that has been floating around for the last couple of years. “The analysis showed us that at the same network reliability and the same link availability, you actually have to increase the size of the antenna with Ka, and because the frequency is higher, some of these compact antennas can’t use Ka in that size and deliver the same throughput,” he continued. “You need a bigger antenna. Even with that larger equipment set, you also need more power on the satellite in order to deliver the same level of throughput and network reliability. “We were really surprised when we did the comparison. The analysis was clear that there really isn’t dramatic cost saving our industrial or government customers,” Myers said, adding that he attributes this in part to the need to meet the high-end service level agreement required by these users. One approach being adopted for Ka by military customers is to focus usage on UAVs flying at altitudes where they avoid atmospheric interference associated with higher frequencies, which then frees up Ku for troops to use on the ground, Myers noted. He also sees capabilities associated with Ku and Ka as merging, citing the adoption of hybrid technology, such as taking the spot beam frequency re-use architecture that is very common on Ka platforms and implementing it on Ku platforms, creating high throughput satellites in that frequency band. “Ka is great, but it is just one more frequency band, one more tool for satellite service providers, and in the end, the application environment is what determines the appropriate band. Ka is not a panacea that solves all problems. It has been pitched with that hype and with the claim that Ku and C will no longer be relevant. That is not true and we know that today because we have many clients, quite a few of them military customers, that won’t switch from C to Ku because of rain fade and link availability. It is all about the mission and the right solution for the mission profile. There will absolutely be mission profiles that need Ka, but it is not an automatic replacement for the more established frequency bands,” he concluded. www.MIT-kmi.com
Leader of the Band As one of the largest providers of commercial satellite bandwidth to the federal government, with more than 5.5GHz of service, Artel sees itself as positioned to take the lead in providing military Ka bandwidth to DoD. “Through its joint efforts with Boeing, Artel owns the exclusive sales and distribution rights to the military Ka bandwidth on the planned Inmarsat 5 satellite constellation. As a part of its responsibilities under the program, Artel is designing and will deploy the hub gateways for landing the service,” said Bob Cupples, Artel’s director of network operations. To support the Ka services, Artel will connect the hub gateways to its global MPLS network. Artel’s network comprises a presence at more than 25 teleports, supporting all satellite frequency bands on more than 55 satellites. Artel’s network currently extends service to over 200 POPs, with plans to expand to 30 military bases. Given this positioning, Artel has invested extensive time and engineering resources to support Ka service delivery. Propagation studies in Ka-band transmission have been examined for several decades, and industry is now ready to implement effective Ka-band systems. “As our need for greater throughput increases, Ka-band systems have become a more attractive option,” Cupples said. “We now have an in-depth understanding of propagation losses due to rain attenuation, atmospheric gases, sand and dust storms, as well as scintillation and multipath effects and decrease in antenna gain as a result of wave-front incoherence. There now exist developed and deployed techniques designed to assist Ka-band systems in maximizing performance.”
A dynamic coding and modulation technology, such as the standard DVB-S2 Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM), provides a means to maximize the data throughput during clear-sky conditions, as well as maintain connection at a lower bit-rate during rain-fades. Additionally, satellite designers are providing features on Ka-band satellites, such as transponders with selectable bandwidths and selectable satellite gain settings. These features, along with ACM-capable modems on the ground, provide the link designer with tools for mitigating any downlink issues. For the uplink, Uplink Power Control (UPC) is normal because it is relatively cost effective. Automatic UPC will diminish the effect of rain at the hub for the outbound channels, while most remote terminal modems allow UPC for the inbound, which are controlled from the hub—that is, iDirect, Comtech 5650A and so on. The uplink rain-fade on the outbound carrier from the hub can be further diminished, so as to be almost nonexistent, by providing two geographically diverse hubs connected as a 1:1 redundant hot-spare system. This is the route that Artel is taking, building two earth station gateways for each of the three Inmarsat 5 satellites. This approach method provides the additional advantage of minimizing outages due to both unplanned and scheduled maintenance There are several key factors that Artel considered before participating with Boeing in the I5 military Ka-band offering. These included capacity capabilities and the cost advantage of Ka over Ku, as well as the Inmarsat 5’s constellation’s capability to augment the WGS system. All of the factors pointed to a more costeffective offering to DoD customers, company officials concluded.
Small Form Factor
Space, which is providing the terminal’s modem. “Our terminal is also capable of operating in the government frequency bands of WGS, and at the appropriate time we will enter into the certification testing process for our antenna systems so it can operate in WGS. It is the next step to an offering of our antenna system to the U.S. customer or other WGS operators,” Hopp said. Boeing is currently looking exclusively at airborne terminals in Kaband, using phased array antenna technology. Ka terminals are no different from Ku-band systems or indeed any other frequency in being subject to the laws of physics, Hopp noted. “The larger the antenna, the better the performance. But having said that, the new high-powered antennas satellites in Ku and Ka have allowed the use of much smaller antenna systems. The generational shift that we have made is to move away from separate receive and transmit antennas. Most of our generational changes have to do with our design and packaging of the electronics in the antenna. “Ka in some ways is easier, however, because the frequency bands are separated by 10Ghz. Our designs have moved to where we can put both the receive and the transmit antenna into the same mounting structure and thus our small form factor become quite small and allow it to go on variety of different platforms,” he added. O
As the builder of both of the WGS constellation and the new Inmarsat 5 constellation, Boeing is committed to the Ka frequency. The company is also developing terminals to support commercial and military Ka-band to complement these and other satellites in that frequency. Boeing’s airborne implementation of a phased array Ka-band terminal is known as the Small Form Factor Ka-band Antenna System. The terminal has recently completed its critical design review, with qualification and testing due to begin in the fall. “Boeing is developing its Ka-band SATCOM terminal with Boeing money,” explained business development director Jerry Hopp. “It is a company investment. We believe in the technology, we believe it is important to have a capability for aeronautical users going forward. I think there is a market for our technology, and it will support other areas within Boeing with our vertical product offering.” Discussing the progress of the airborne terminal, Hopp explained, “We are going into qualification testing and then we will address anything that arises from qualification testing into the final production version. Final production of the system will occur late next year. We won’t be delivering these antennas until late 2013-14. Like all these technologies you design, test and go into production, then there are integration efforts, and ultimately it gets delivered to the customer for installation on their aircraft.” The customer for the antenna is the United Arab Emirates to support its own Yahsat Ka-band system, with Boeing working with Astrium www.MIT-kmi.com
For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.
MIT 16.9 | 13
DATA BYTES Air Force Selects Network Tablet Samsung Electronics America and Intelligent Decisions (ID), a provider of federal IT solutions, have announced that the Samsung Series 7 Slate has been awarded the network slate tablet category contract under the Air Force Client Computing and Servers blanket purchase agreement. ID and Samsung are partnering to deliver the Samsung Series 7 Slate, which is the first device selected under the new network tablet category, available for deployment at Air Force bases worldwide. The Samsung Series 7 Slate provides the standard desktop configuration implementation of Windows 7 Professional and supports all the same programs as a full-size PC, in a slim, light tablet form factor. At just a half-inch thick and featuring a responsive 11.6-inch touch screen, the Series 7 Slate allows for convenient use on the move, but can also be docked or connected to an optional Bluetooth keyboard, so no PC functionality is sacrificed. The Samsung Slate is delivered with a Trusted Computing Group certified, Trusted Platform Module 1.2 chip. With no rewriting or retraining necessary for IT departments, this tablet solution has
Distribution Partnership Offers Information Lifecycle Management Carahsoft Technology Corp. and Solix Technologies have announced a distribution partnership where Carahsoft will distribute Solix products and solutions under their GSA schedule. The partnership provides solutions to federal, state and local government agencies for information life cycle management (ILM) and data privacy. The Solix Enterprise Data Management Suite offers an integrated set of tools to address the challenges associated with data growth and data security. By tiering data through an ILM framework, database archiving and application retirement solutions help manage the enormous data growth challenge faced by many large organizations. Other agreements announced by Carahsoft in recent months include with Delphix, for its database virtualization solutions; Cloudera, for enterprise-grade Apache Hadoop data management software, services and training; and iOra, a provider of data replication solutions to the network edge.
established a reputation for conquering security, acquisitions and functionality hurdles.
Navy Funds Laser Communications System ITT Exelis and Innovative Technical Solutions (commercially known as NOVASOL) have been awarded a $7 million contract to develop a laser communications system for the Navy and Marine Corps. The team will complete development of a line-of-sight, high-bandwidth laser communications system that will be used for ship-to-ship, ship-to-shore and ground-toground mission applications. The contract is with the Office of Naval Research and Naval Research Laboratory. ISR missions have become more sophisticated, requiring more data to be exchanged more rapidly than ever before. Delivering ISR data to decision makers and warfighters is challenging yet critical to mission success. Exelis and NOVASOL have successfully field-demonstrated their laser capability, using both short- and long-range transmission, within a simulated Marine Corps network. The team has also participated in Navy exercises to improve the technology used to transmit and receive data over extended line-of-sight distances in diverse weather conditions. Under the contract, Exelis is leading systems engineering, product development and production, and NOVASOL is engaged in the design and development of laser communication technologies.
High-Speed Digital Link Transmits Helicopter-Ship Data The Communication Systems-West (CS-West) division of L-3 Communications has been was selected for the 2012-to-2017 full-rate production contract of CDL Hawklink valued at $181 million, with $28 million to be awarded this year. L-3 is the current prime contractor for the program, and this award follows a prior initial production contract 14 | MIT 16.9
award in June 2009 of $141 million. L-3’s Ku-band CDL Hawklink system is a high-speed digital data link that transmits tactical video, radar and acoustic sensor data from the Navy’s MH-60 Romeo Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System helicopter to its host surface ships. Comprising the AN/ARQ-59 airborne terminal and the AN/SRQ-4 shipboard terminal,
the system will double the Hawklink’s current data rates for the MH-60R at ranges over 100 nautical miles and will support a full range of surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and recovery missions. Additionally, the system is suitable for a variety of platforms, providing extended range, high data rates and proven operational reliability. www.MIT-kmi.com
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
New Office Oversees Tactical Networking Development The Joint Program Executive Office for the Joint Tactical Radio System has ceased operations, replaced by the Joint Tactical Networking Center ( JTNC), which will be responsible for development and sustainment related to software defined radio (SDR) waveforms and network management. The JTNC will build on a legacy of SDR technology experience, to develop and/ or modernize radio waveforms and test and certify industry partner tactical networking devices to ensure interoperability across the services. SDR waveforms and the Software Communications Architecture are key elements of future capabilities for all services and must be properly managed and adequately staffed with technical subject matter experts. The JTNC will provide secure networking waveforms, capable of operating in a variety of hardware transport solutions, for both program of record and non-developmental item radios in support of combatant commander, service, and coalition interoperable network mission requirements.
GSA Announces CloudBased Email Services The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that it is now offering cloud-based email services, through 20 blanket purchase agreements awarded to 17 businesses. GSA is offering these email services through a blanket purchase agreement with the cloud service providers, which allows for simplified ways of fulfilling recurring needs for these services. GSA’s award of these cloud email service contracts allows vendors to provide government entities with email, cloudbased office automation, electronic records management, migration services and integration services. The businesses that received these contracts are: Accenture Federal Services, Autonomic Resources, CGI Federal, Ciracom, Computer Sciences Corp., Dell Federal Systems, DLT Solutions, General Dynamics Information Technology, Harris IT Service Corp., IBM Global Business Services, Lockheed Martin, Onix Networking Corp., Science Applications International Corp., Smartronix, Systems Research and Applications Corp., Technosource and Unisys. www.MIT-kmi.com
Low Cost Terminals Offer Protected Communications
TeleCommunication Systems (TCS), Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have teamed to produce highly affordable satellite terminals for protected communications on the move and at the halt. The Low Cost Terminal (LCT) solution addresses the military’s need for lower cost technologies and systems to enable protected and secure communications for tactical warfighters in theater. The three companies are operating under a collaborative agreement signed earlier
this year for TCS to manufacture, market and sell LCT products under license from Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. The LCT solution enables assured, secure mission command at levels below the brigade combat team anywhere in the world. Developed entirely with company investment, the LCT solution includes two variants of equipment: a protected communications on the move terminal and a protected SIPR/NIPR access point terminal for communications at the halt.
Monitoring Service Tracks SATCOM Interference The SAT Corp. subsidiary of Kratos Defense and Security Solutions has been awarded a contract by U.S. Strategic Command to provide worldwide radio frequency (RF) interference geolocation services. The award is valued at $13.2 million if all options are exercised. Under the terms of the contract, SAT will provide U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) with SAT’s QoS RF monitoring and interference detection and geolocation services for monitoring and geolocating commercial satellite interference. SAT Services will provide USCYBERCOM’s Global
SATCOM Support Center, located at Peterson AFB, Colo., with actionable information via SAT’s global network of eight commercial interference detection and geolocation sites. SAT’s global network employs products that include Monics for interference monitoring; satID for geolocation; and tri-band (C-, X- and Ku-band) antennas to quickly and accurately identify, characterize and geolocate sources of unintentional or deliberate interference affecting leased commercial communication satellites.
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Satellite Communicator
Q& A
Delivering Responsive, Mission Partner-Focused Commercial SATCOM Colonel Michelle Nassar Chief DISA COMSATCOM Center Colonel Michelle Nassar currently serves as chief, COMSATCOM Center, under Network Services, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). Her previous assignment was product manager, integrated broadcast services terminals, under the Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, where she managed the Joint Tactical Terminal and Common Ground Station product lines. Nassar enlisted with the Army reserves for two years prior to her graduation from Boston College, where she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps. She served as platoon leader under the 1st Signal Brigade in Korea, followed by a temporary deployment to Saudi Arabia as platoon leader under the 35th Signal Brigade in support of Operation Desert Storm. Upon her return to the states she served as executive officer, adjutant and company commander with various units at Fort Gordon, Ga. After completion of the Signal Officers Advanced Course, she served as a signal team assistor at Readiness Group Redstone in Huntsville, Ala. Nassar’s acquisition assignments include systems automation instructor at the Army Logistics Management College, Fort Lee, Va.; executive officer for the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical; and assistant project manager (APM) for Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2). During her tenure as APM for FBCB2/Blue Force Tracking, Nassar deployed for nine months to Kuwait, with a brief mission in Iraq in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, where she worked closely with the Coalition Forces Land Component Command. Upon her return, she moved to Fort Belvoir, Va., and served as the operations officer of the Acquisition Support Center. Her last duties prior to becoming a product manager were serving as a Department of the Army systems coordinator and operations officer under the assistant secretary of the Army (acquisition, logistics and technology). In addition to a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College, Nassar earned a master’s in public administration from Georgia Southern University. Nassar was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly. Q: What is the mission of the COMSATCOM Center, and what are the main programs under it? A: COMSATCOM Center’s mission is to deliver operationally responsive, mission partner-focused, and cost-effective commercial SATCOM services that enable the joint warfighter. Under COMSATCOM Center, there are two mission threads. One is the execution of the highly visible Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition [FCSA] strategy, and the second is the delivery of Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services [EMSS]. www.MIT-kmi.com
The COMSATCOM Services Division facilitates the delivery of operationally responsive, mission partner-focused, and cost-effective fixed satellite services, mobile satellite services and custom end-to-end solutions, and provides operational support to leased Department of Defense COMSATCOM capabilities through the global and regional support centers. The EMSS Division delivers EMSS to the deployed warfighter and partnering agencies. This team develops, fields and supports Iridium constellation-based products, to include the Distributed Tactical Communications System [DTCS], that greatly enhance command, control and communications to disadvantaged forces. The COMSATCOM Center also plays a key role as the commercial SATCOM systems expert for U.S. Strategic Command [USSTRATCOM]. Our strategic and policy level support to USSTRATCOM, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the joint community includes developing and conducting trends analyses within the annual COMSATCOM usage and expenditure report; assessing impacts of industry changes, such as emerging technologies and pending mergers; and providing critical insights into interagency forums such as the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and the DoD Mission Assurance Working Group. Q: How would you describe your philosophy about the different roles of MILSATCOM and commercial services? MIT 16.9 | 17
A: Leveraging both COMSATCOM and MILSATCOM services yields operational advantages for DoD because they both play large and important roles that complement each other. Some of the warfighter’s SATCOM requirements are analogous to the requirements of commercial consumers, and thus, commercial offerings exist—or are planned—to address this market. Conversely, there are certain inherent military unique requirements for which specialized solutions are needed. As DoD demand for SATCOM services exceeds the capacity of available military satellite systems, COMSATCOM services figure prominently in satisfying a substantial portion of demand. Over the past decade, COMSATCOM systems have evolved from being a complementary capability to being a critical element in the DoD architecture. Going forward, a continued and effective partnership with the COMSATCOM industry will allow DoD to take advantage of industry’s investment in technology, maximize the use of their rapid time to market, and benefit from the diversity of readily available and scalable commercial products/services potentially available in any given operational region. As a consumer in the commercial satellite industry marketplace, DoD is engaged and proactive in formulating COMSATCOM investment and acquisition strategies to satisfy military operational requirements. Q: What is your organization’s role in the transition to the Future COMSATCOM Services Acquisition? A: The COMSATCOM Center and DISA’s Procurement Directorate led the acquisition and contracts development for FCSA. We partnered with the General Services Administration [GSA] to establish flexible contract mechanisms available to all government agencies to create a common marketplace for service providers and users to satisfy as many types of COMSATCOM service needs as possible. Currently, our team oversees the transition of existing task orders [TOs] from legacy DoD contracts onto the new contracts, as well as new task orders. We are converting over 7,000 DoD Communication Service Authorizations [CSAs] to Subscription Services GSA Schedule 70 Special Item Number [SIN] 132-55, Transponded Capacity SIN 132-54, or Custom Satellite Communications Solutions [CS2], and already seeing positive outcomes. For example, we are currently transitioning about 500 Army Broadband Global Area Network [BGAN] CSAs from the Inmarsat IDIQ contract to SIN 132-55. Here, Schedule 70 offered great savings, although the degree of savings correlates to the speed with which the services are transferred off the old contract. For our new and existing users, we are constantly exploring innovative engineering solutions to meet requirements while applying cost estimates to save the warfighter money, leveraging the strengths of these new contract vehicles, including great flexibility in adding new service offerings and vendors during the lifetime of the contracts. We recognize that change often presents new challenges; however, we are confident that these contracts will positively benefit the warfighter’s COMSATCOM services and budgets, and we are dedicated to make the transition as smooth as possible. Q: How would you evaluate the response FCSA has been receiving from users? What about from industry? A: Users have reacted positively to the two Schedule 70 SINs and the Custom SATCOM Solutions-Small Business [CS2-SB] contract vehicles. This common marketplace, and use of GSA contract vehicles, is 18 | MIT 16.9
giving users the ability to compare service offerings and compete TOs where they are able to directly access the diversity of available COMSATCOM service providers who are pre-qualified to meet U.S. government information assurance and protection requirements. FCSA was created to allow industry partners to compete in three distinct spaces: transponded capacity, subscription services and end-to-end solutions. As a result, the increase in industry partners would allow greater competition and potentially constrain price increases for the government. Preliminary analyses of FCSA appear to indicate some improvement in cost effectiveness when compared with the previous COMSATCOM services contract, the Defense Information System Network [DISN] Satellite Transmission Service-Global [DSTS-G]. Under FCSA, the average cost across task orders awarded to date was approximately 26 percent less expensive per transponder equivalent than the previous fiscal year 2010 DSTS-G average costs. Industry has also reacted positively to FCSA. There are currently 28 industry partners on all FCSA contracts, with some on multiple vehicles. There are 27 on Schedule 70, eight on CS2 and four on CS2-SB. And there were other interested parties who did not qualify. The competitive balance has been better on FCSA in comparison to DSTS-G, as 15 industry partners have reported sales on FCSA so far, whereas the DSTS-G contract was limited to three and the Inmarsat contract limited to five. Q: What is the status of the Custom Satellite Solutions (CS2) program, and what do you see as its primary goals? A: The CS2-SB IDIQ was awarded in February 2012 and is available to DoD and other federal agencies for customized end-to-end COMSATCOM solution requirements. CS2-SB is intended to fulfill the smaller, less complex end-to-end satellite solutions, for example, regionally based solutions with moderate numbers of users. There are four industry partners ready to provide user defined custom end-to-end solutions. The period of performance [PoP] is a three-year base, with two one-year options with a ceiling of $900 million. The CS2 full & open IDIQ was recently awarded in August. It is intended for global scale and highly complex end-to-end satellite solution needs. The PoP is a threeyear base, with two one-year options and a ceiling of $2.6 billion. We are confident in the full suite of services provided to the warfighters. Q: How do you see military demand for commercial SATCOM changing in light of the drawdown from SWA and overall changes in the U.S. strategic posture? A: As the military drawdown occurs in Southwest Asia and the U.S. strategic posture shifts, we expect commercial SATCOM demand to remain consistent and possibly grow. With fewer troops on the ground there will be an increased need of ISR missions using UAVs, resulting in continuous demand for bandwidth. Q: What are you learning from your users, both about their changing needs for commercial satellite services and their level of satisfaction with current programs? A: As we suspected when putting together the market research and acquisition approach for FCSA, we are seeing significant increases in demand for COMSATCOM subscription services, as well as more effective utilization of bandwidth by the vendors. In their simplest form, subscription services are simply buying service from a vendor’s www.MIT-kmi.com
TCS TOTALCOM
TM
Mission Critical Secure Communications
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prepositioned service offering on a per-usage or per-monthly basis. We are seeing that these solutions are resulting in the ability of our users to effectively procure more bandwidth for lower costs. We recently completed our 2012 customer survey and saw an overall increase in satisfaction with our COMSATCOM acquisition process. We garnered major strides in the timeliness and flexibility of meeting users’ needs. Our customers also provided high marks for our ability to help them navigate the cost estimation process. Nothing is perfect, however. Sometimes there are concerns with customers used to the previous DSTS-G process, which in general took less time than the current FCSA acquisition process. The acquisition timeline has increased principally due to requirements to provide more time for vendor responses to requests for proposals. We look forward to working with our mission partners to educate them on which FCSA service area best meets their requirements and offers the best value, and we will continue to solicit their feedback so we can continue to improve our service to them.
We encourage industry to respond to our RFIs to allow our team to better scope industry capabilities and their flexibility to meet varying and at times complex warfighter needs. We see this as an avenue to position more of our industry partners to bid on TOs, which could drive down the cost of COMSATCOM services for the warfighter and ultimately the taxpayer. We always welcome feedback from industry, not just on specific task orders, but also to help us understand how best to align our acquisitions in ways to optimize industry participation and gain the full benefit of industry capabilities. We encourage industry to provide COMSATCOM Center with their capability briefs and other references and business decisions to keep our team informed on industry’s ever evolving capabilities and intentions. We are all here to serve the warfighters, and our partnership with industry is critical. We ask our industry partners to continue working with us to meet our mission to ‘deliver operationally responsive, mission partner-focused and cost-effective commercial SATCOM services that enable the joint warfighter.’
Q: What changes or improvements would you like to see from industry in how it works with your office, as well as in how it serves military users?
Q: What new satellite communications technology do you see coming down the road with significant potential for military users?
A: As part of our acquisition process, there are times when we deem it necessary to release draft requests for information [RFIs], which help us develop the best strategy and requirements to meet user needs.
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A: There are two new satellite communications technologies with significant potential for military users that COMSATCOM Center is involved in. Going back to the EMSS mission thread, we have a product called the DTCS, which was originally offered only to CENTCOM through a joint urgent operational needs statement [JUONS]. However, the JUONS closed in July, and the service is now available to the greater DoD community. We are now working on DTCS Phase 3. Phase 3 will enable global netted voice, data and position location information capability; optimized data services, up to 30 times higher volume of devices; over-the-air configuration and commands; and tactical mission support. DTCS provides on-the move, over-the-horizon and beyond line-of-sight communications independent of infrastructure, and offers pole-to-pole coverage through the Iridium satellite constellation. Initial operational capability is scheduled for 2014. Over-the-demonstrations of the interim system capabilities, including the global netted capability, are available now. The second technology we’re leveraging is Inmarsat’s Broadband Global Area Network [BGAN]. BGAN will continue to offer significant benefits to the warfighter and be the most prevalent COMSATCOM service offered through FCSA. To enhance the capability, the COMSATCOM Center is currently developing a direct connection with Inmarsat, where DISA will own the network path providing greater situational awareness to the department and a secure enterprise solution allowing BGAN users to reach NIPRNet and SIPRNet services. This is called BGAN RAS—a cost-effective remote access service. With likely DoD budget cuts, this solution will assist customers who have been deploying a stovepiped, independently funded solution. BGAN RAS will be available to initial users within the calendar year. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: It is clear that DoD is facing new budgetary pressures; however, the importance and prominence of SATCOM, and in particular, COMSATCOM, will not wane. SATCOM is ingrained into our missions and offers unique capabilities that are critical to DoD missions. O www.MIT-kmi.com
Cybersecurity’s Certification Challenge
Requirements for information security certification for IT professionals raise challenges and opportunities for the military and contractors. By Karen E. Thuermer, MIT Correspondent
Possessing the IT and cybersecurity skills needed by military and other networks is one thing, but having the proper security industry certification to work as a private contractor to the Department of Defense is another. Compound this with the recent estimate that a minimum force of 30,000 to 40,000 cybersecurity specialists is needed by federal agencies and major corporations, and it’s easy to see why the issue of information security certification for IT professionals raises challenges and opportunities for military personnel and DoD contractors. First published in 2005, DoD Directive 8570.01-M (Information Assurance Workforce Improvement Program) details specific certification, experience requirements and training that military personnel must have to obtain privileged access to operate DoD-related information systems for information assurance purposes. In 2007, a clause was added to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement that requires any company bidding on new DoD IT contracts must have 8570-compliant personnel. www.MIT-kmi.com
Examples of industry professional certifications included in the 8570 requirements for certain levels are the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM). The CISSP is the globally recognized industry standard for those holding managementlevel positions. CISSP falls under requirements for Technical Level 3 and Management Levels 1, 2 and 3. CISM falls under Management Level 2 and 3. “Depending on the level of access, general IT certifications, information architecture certifications or both, are required,” stated Bill Stewart, a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton who oversees cyber technologies.
Contractor Efforts Finding employees who have the appropriate required certification, however, is challenging for both the DoD and government contractors. This is particularly the case given the fact that cybersecurity in today’s IT and IA world is a complex, MIT 16.9 | 21
multifaceted challenge that, as Stewart pointed out, requires a multidimensional response. “In a field as specialized and technical as cybersecurity, there is always a strong demand for top candidates,” said Stewart. Booz Allen is committed to developing the best in industry talent to support clients’ needs across a wide spectrum of cyber-capabilities, he said. “We are looking for candidates with diverse and broad skill sets across all areas of cybersecurity. The highest in-demand skills today are those relating to mobile and cloud security, security engineering, vulnerability testing and mitigation and risk management.” To support employees, Booz Allen Hamilton instituted its Cyber University to support its employees’ continuous development through industry recognized certifications, aligned with DoD 8570 requirements and specifications. The university is in partnership with certifying bodies, such as SANS, CompTIA, Securible, Ultimate Knowledge and Skillsoft. “We have conferred over 5,600 certifications on our employees, representing a variety of technical disciplines, including DoD 8570-specified certifications,” Stewart said. The Cyber University program also includes a partnership with University of Maryland University College to provide three graduate certificate programs: cybersecurity policy, cybersecurity foundations and cybersecurity technology. “By providing staff with the opportunity to continually develop their cybersecurity skills and giving them incentive to do so through assessment and awards programs, we develop and maintain a highly skilled cadre of cybersecurity professionals,” he said. General Dynamics Information Technology continues to seek a wide range of IT security professionals, including but not limited to IA, certification and accreditation, computer network defense, vulnerability assessments and forensics experts. “It can be a challenge to locate people with appropriate IT certifications for specific needs, depending on the level of IT certification required, location of the work, and what security clearance is needed for the position,” commented Tim Strike, senior recruiting manager for General Dynamics Information Technology. “Because of the limited number of potential candidates, our recruiting efforts start very early in the staffing process to ensure we’re able to fill positions as quickly as possible.” Employees at General Dynamics Information Technology obtain certifications through the number of DoD-recognized commercial and associational certifications accredited by the American National Standards Institute for 8570 compliance, such as CompTIA.
standards for a broad range of technology skills, including PC fundamentals and repair, networking, security, servers, Linux, project management, printing and document imaging, cloud computing, health IT, storage and convergence technologies,” said Erdle. The DoD recognizes CompTIA certifications in its technical and management tracks for information assurance technicians and managers under DoD Directive 8570.1M. CompTIA certifications are also part of the State Department Skills Incentive Program. “A certification makes an individual more marketable,” Erdle said. “Unless the prospective employer is familiar with the school the job candidate attended or the organizations the candidate worked for previously, he or she has no independent means of knowing how rigorous the program or experience is. When a job candidate comes to an employer with recognized and accepted professional certifications, it gives the employer more to go on.” For workers new to the employment market and without a great deal of past experience, the combination of an academic degree and an industry-recognized certification puts the worker in a stronger position when looking for a job. While CompTIA does not provide training to prepare for the exams, it partners with educational institutions, commercial training providers and other organizations for training on its certifications. “This is done through the CompTIA Authorized Partner Program,” Erdle said.
Troops to Tech Careers
To help veterans achieve certification so that they can more easily transition from military to civilian life and have a successful career in IT, CompTIA works with veterans through a program it calls “Troops to Tech Careers.” “We provide them with a pathway to successful careers in IT through education, credentialing and employment,” Erdle explained. “Our Troops to Tech Careers program works through the public workforce system to ensure that returning veterans with aptitude and interest in a technical IT career will receive the education, credentialing and job placement assistance needed to join the nation’s IT workforce.” The education component of the program focuses on community colleges with long-standing relationships with local One Stop Career Centers as well as private training providers. Additionally, CompTIA is reaching out to four-year colleges and universities, both public and private, that offer IT degree programs for veterans. The cost to take a CompTIA certification exam varies depending on the specific certification, but Industry Standards they range from $178 to $328 in the United States. Terry Erdle Certification costs for CompTIA exams taken by miliCompTIA is known worldwide as the leading proterdle@comptia.org tary veterans are covered by the Workforce Investvider of vendor-neutral IT certifications. ment Act, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment and Post-9/11 “As a nonprofit trade association, CompTIA is the recognized GI Bill. authority for IT education and credentials and the primary advocate Organizations such as Warrior to Cyber Warrior (W2CW) also for IT businesses and workers,” said Terry Erdle, executive vice presiare working to reduce the gap by helping veterans and wounded dent, certification, CompTIA. warriors achieve marketable skills in the area of cybersecurity. CompTIA’s vision of the IT landscape is informed by more than W2CW is an independent not-for-profit organization established by 30 years of global perspective and more than 2,200 members and Echo360 and Lunarline. 1,000 business partners that span the entire IT industry. Echo360 is a company that provides learning solutions through More than 1.7 million IT professionals around the world are its technology, which digitally records and shares instructional CompTIA certified. “These certifications are the recognized industry 22 | MIT 16.9
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in cybersecurity. This support ranges from resume writing and netcontent live and on demand, allowing institutions to reach more stuworking to mental and wellness support. dents while lowering costs. A service-disabled veteran-owned small The first cohort of 10 warriors commenced in business, Lunarline provides cybersecurity solutions, July. By the end of the year, the organization hopes specialized IA services and certified security training the first cohort of students will be placed either in to all federal agencies, as well as to customers in permanent or intern positions in cybersecurity. selected commercial markets. As the program advances, its founding companies W2CW seeks to assist veterans and wounded anticipate that the W2CW program will receive supwarriors with making the transition from their port from both the public and private sectors through military life into a secure and prosperous career in federal state and local government grants, corporate cybersecurity. “The goal of the founding companies and individual sponsorships, and donations. is for this training to remain at no cost to the vetSinger sees such a program as particularly imporeran,” said Fred Singer, chief executive officer of tant given that President Obama has identified cyberEcho360. Fred Singer security as one of the most serious economic and “W2CW provides veterans with cyber and IT national security challenges the United States faces related training, certification and job placement, as today, and one that it is not adequately prepared to counter. well as transition assistance, all free of charge, to enable our veterans “Our nation’s computer systems are appallingly vulnerable due to continue to serve their country and support themselves and their to the severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers families with dignity and integrity,” reported Singer. “Each student with the skills and knowledge necessary to do battle against wouldwill graduate with a sufficient knowledge to be successful in an be adversaries,” Singer stated. “W2CW puts veterans and wounded entry-level career in cybersecurity.” warriors on the path to economic independence while serving the Each graduate of the program will receive the CompTIA Secuneeds of our country.” O rity+ Certification, as well as the National Security Agency and the Committee for National Security Systems 4011, 4012 and 4015 For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly certifications. Each student will also have the option to add a privacy at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives specialization and obtain the Certified Information Privacy Profesfor related stories at www.mit-kmi.com. sional (CIPP) certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. As part of the program,W2CW works with students to secure internships with prospective public or private sector employers from the onset of training. “Employers in federal agencies and commercial companies are invited to engage with students at various times during the six-month program,” Singer said. Programs like W2CW are vital, analysts say, because the gap in the number of qualified cybersecurity professionals in the United Aerostat-mounted Antennas: States is growing. • Overcome LOS Obstacles “Likewise, for unemployed or underemployed veterans, time is • Extend Range of Radios of the essence when making the transition to a new position,” Singer • Cover the Last Tactical Mile said. “That’s why the W2CW curriculum was designed from orientation to certification in just six months.”
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What makes the program unique is W2CW’s approach to training and career placement. “One of the major challenges of veteran retraining programs is that the individual has little or no experience seeking a new job, despite having the qualifications for many positions,” Singer said. “W2CW creates a pipeline of cybersecurity professionals for both private and public sector organizations by not only providing training, but the career placement support as well.“ This is achieved over the six-month period. In an initial, threeday face-to-face orientation, students meet their cohort and become familiar with the online learning platform. Training is conducted and each student has the opportunity to earn the Security+ Certification and/or the CIPP. Each warrior student is paired with a veteran mentor and also matched with a prospective employer. Throughout the program, through mentorship, cohort support via online community, and internships, the student is prepared to transition to a new position
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(Editor’s Note: U.S. Cyber Command recently sponsored the second annual USCYBERCOM Inter-Agency Legal Conference, held at Fort Meade, Md., in September. Following are edited excerpts from remarks by Rear Admiral Margaret Klein, the command’s chief of staff.)
While cyber is new, the current state of cyber-law, and perhaps the lack of clear legal guidance, is something we’ve seen in the past when other new technologies were introduced. In the 1800s, when development of the telegraph broke down barriers of time and space, and forever changed the way we exchange information, the innovation also brought a new set of legal issues. How we transmit information over telegraph lines— how does that affect sovereignty? It’s something that people then did not consider. The development of cyber-capabilities is probably most like the development of military aviation. In its early stages, because of the dominance of other platforms, aircraft were viewed mainly as platforms for reconnaissance. The Navy was focused on the battleship. Then, we decided that if we had to use these aircraft, we didn’t have to put them anywhere important. They can gather some intelligence, but we wouldn’t consider them as a weapons platform because it was new technology and we already had battleships. But with the advent of World War II, we very quickly adapted, and had to figure out 24 | MIT 16.9
what tools were available to us. We embraced amphibious warfare, aviation warfare and the submarine all in a similar manner. Cyberspace presents a similar dynamic. It’s a new technology that merges national security components. Cyber can potentially be used to deliver serious physical effects, or it can be used to command and control conventional forces. This presents significant legal and policy challenges that are ours to solve. The policy challenges arise as technology is invented, and we come up with ways of implementing that technology. Attorneys and scholars face a variety of complex legal issues arising around this new technology. How is it affected by geography, or by sovereignty? How do we get a common lexicon, so that when we talk about cyberspace, everyone of us has the same image? While those questions remain unanswered, some basic principles do exist. At the most basic level, non-intelligence military operations conducted in cyberspace should follow parallel rules to military operations conducted in the kinetic or conventional world. Cyberspace requires interagency as well as inter-service and international cooperation.
Cyber Command was stood up to tackle some of these problems, so there would be one place and focal point within the Department of Defenseto take on these issues. Cyber Command, along with a diverse set of organizations and people that we work with on a daily basis, including DHS, FBI and the Department of State, work in concert to address issues in this complex environment. There is no shortage of incidents that cause us to come together to dissect the environment we’re in and understand and refine who could do best, whether we’re protecting the nation or helping it move forward using this technology. How do we do this most effectively? Within the Department of Defense, we are always looking to increase our combat effectiveness to the maximum capability of the resources and authority that we have. But when we work across interagency lines, we have to understand that while we are looking toward combat effectiveness, other agencies are looking to cyber for other purposes. Many of these entities have different priorities, which drives resources. But they also have different initiatives, and I encourage people to talk about those initiatives, so www.MIT-kmi.com
Cyber and the Law of Nations During the U.S. Cyber Command Inter-Agency Legal Conference, Harold Koh, legal adviser to the Department of State, distributed the following questions and answers on international law in cyberspace: Q: Do established principles of international law apply to cyberspace? A: Yes. International law principles do apply to activities in cyberspace. Q: Is cyberspace a “lawfree zone,” where anything goes?
within the meaning of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and customary international law. Q: May a state ever respond to a computer network attack by exercising its right of self-defense?
Q: Do cyber-activities ever constitute a use of force?
A: Yes. A state’s national right of self-defense, recognized in Article 51 of the UN Charter, may be triggered by computer network activities that amount to an armed attack or imminent threat thereof.
A: Yes. Cyber-activities under certain circumstances constitute uses of force
Q: Do “jus in bello” rules apply to computer network attacks?
A: Emphatically no. Cyberspace is not a “lawfree zone” where anyone can act without rules or restraint.
that we in the government can use taxpayer resources efficiently and effectively, so that we’re not taking on something with DoD that State or DHS is already doing well, or vice versa.
Practical Challenges I’d like to touch on a couple of practical challenges that we face when we conduct cyber-operations. We live in a world of doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. Some of those have been under development for a significant amount of time, as reflected for example in the recent and upcoming 100th anniversaries of Navy and Marine Corps aviation. Within 30 years, we went from Orville and Wilbur Wright to having aircraft on aircraft carriers. So those tactics, techniques, procedures and doctrine were under development for a lot of time. We quickly worked out, largely as a result of World War II, in the land, maritime and aviation domains, what those tactics, techniques and procedures are, as well as www.MIT-kmi.com
A: Yes. In the context of an armed conflict, the law of armed conflict applies to regulate the use of cybertools in hostilities just as it does other tools. Q: Must attacks distinguish between military and nonmilitary objectives? A: Yes. The “jus in bello” principle of proportionality applies to computer network attacks undertaken in the context of an armed conflict. Q: How should states assess their cyber-tools? A: States should undertake a legal review of weapons,
deconfliction methods. We need the same or parallel structure in the new world of cyber so that we can work effectively. We continue to work at Cyber Command on developing doctrine, so that we can be as proactive as possible and be an agile force that maneuvers quickly. We want to operate at “net speed,” so that we not only communicate quickly, but also that information flows quickly. We’re also looking for ways that adversaries might seek to exploit our weaknesses. It does us no good to be individually aware of our weaknesses, when we really have to be looking across the collective domain. From an operational standpoint, we want to establish a single, integrated process within DoD to understand those combatant command requirements outside us. We look at cyber from a very global perspective and understand that it operates across the globe. We understand that the combatant commanders have a regional view of cyber, as they should, since that is their area of responsibility. It is our responsibility to understand how to distribute resources between global and
including those that employ a cyber-capability. Q: What role does state sovereignty play? A: States conducting activities in cyberspace must take into account the sovereignty of other states, including outside the context of armed conflict. Q: Are states responsible for cyber-acts undertaken through proxies? A: Yes. States are legally responsible for activities undertaken through “proxy actors” acting on the state’s instructions or under its direction or control.
regional problems, and to think about how we support COCOM requirements. We think there are functional focuses in each of the service cyber-components. Each one of the service cyber-components grew up out of its service culture. They are supporting both specific service requirements, as well as combatant command requirements. They have grown up looking at specific problem areas, and we have to bring that together and functionally align that expertise, so that when we face an operational problem at Cyber Command, we may turn to the Marines because they are best at one thing, and to the Air Force, Army or Navy because they are best at another area. Another area is visibility. We need to be able to understand not only our ongoing operations in cyber across the globe, but also see threats that might be directed at government networks. Our joint and service commanders need to know what’s happening inside and outside our networks. This requires unity of effort. MIT 16.9 | 25
All our partners—the interagency, private sector, academia and allies—will have to join forces to achieve faster, more comprehensive and timely warnings of threats to any networks, including the fact that we in DoD are 95 percent reliant on civilian critical infrastructure. We want to create an integrated operational capability to respond, but also to maintain the ability to support our conventional forces using the Internet.
Building Skill Sets Another challenge is having trained and ready personnel. When Cyber Command was established, experts estimated that we would need about 1,000 people, and we would build the kind of skill sets we needed as we went along. We often talk about flying the airplane and building it at the same time, when really we’ve already built the platform and we’re doing the fine-tuning now. To design each of the components, we need people who understand the technological capability in cyber. But we also need
26 | MIT 16.9
skilled people who understand how to operate in cyber. In DoD, those skilled people come from the services. We’re a joint command, and we draw expertise from each of the services. Each of the services has come to grips with the idea that they need to be able to do more than just operate their own networks to present forces to combatant commanders. But we’ve discovered in the last couple of years that COCOMs at the very least want to make sure that they have a force that is protecting their interests, which starts with their individual networks. We get those people by training them. Do we organically train them, or do we attract more STEM candidates from universities? What is the right mix of officer and enlisted? What is the right mix of uniformed and civilian people? One of the initiatives in DoD is to build a more defensible architecture. We’ve all heard the urban legend that there are 15,000 separate and distinct enclaves, domains or networks across DoD. That’s why we are
working with the folks in OSD to understand what a more defensible architecture would look like, and how the services take care of everyone, from their strategic customers, such as the combatant commanders, all the way down to their operating forces. What does this new, defensible architecture look like? How do we build it, and how do we help our current acquisition programs move forward, so we can build the system with improved security and operational capability? How do we take new technology, like cloud computing, virtualization, data management or access controls, to reduce the attack surface that is exposed to our adversaries? This will allow us to successfully fulfill our mission in the department, and to defend DoD and the nation in cyberspace. O
For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.
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MIT RESOURCE CENTER Advertisers Index Adobe/Carahsoft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 http://events.carahsoft.com/event-detail/1960/mit Artel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 www.artelinc.com Exelis Electronic Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.exelisinc.com/gnomad-dom Globecomm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 www.globecomm.com Harris Caprock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 www.harriscaprock.com Intelsat General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.farmorethansatellites.com
LogRhythm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C3 www.logrhythm.com/federal Satcom Direct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 www.satcomdirect.com Syntonics LLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 www.syntonicscorp.com TCS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 www.telecomsys.com University of Maryland University College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 http://military.umuc.edu/servesyou
Calendar October 22-24, 2012 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exhibition Washington, D.C. www.ausa.org
October 29-November 1, 2012 MILCOM Orlando, Fla. www.milcom.org
NEXTISSUE
November 13-15, 2012 TechNet Asia-Pacific Honolulu, Hawaii www.afceahawaii.org
November 2012 Volume 16, Issue 10
Cover and In-Depth Interview with:
Gen. Keith B. Alexander Commander, U.S. Cyber Command Director, National Security Agency Chief, Central Security Service
Features • Network Monitoring
• Data Backup
• Smart Radios
• Army Capability Set 13
Insertion Order Deadline: October 26, 2012 | Ad Materials Deadline: November 2, 2012
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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Military Information Technology
Chris Petersen Chief Technology Officer and Founder LogRhythm Q: How would you describe the current cyber-threat landscape and how that’s driving the need for a new generation of security information and event management (SIEM)? A: It starts with the fact that the cyber-crime economy and supply chain have evolved substantially over the last few years in ways that are forcing even the most advanced IT security teams to rethink their approach to information security. Today, cyber-terrorists and cyber-warriors have ready access to forsale malware, exploits and for-hire resources necessary to perpetrate virtually any cyberattack. Whether the attacker is an insider or a coordinated execution by an enemy nation, the ever-expanding supply chain of resources and tools acts as a force multiplier for cyberterrorism and nation-state cyber-attacks. As in physical war, in cyber-war there are no “perfect” defenses. As the sophistication of attacks continues to increase at a rapid pace, so too will the volume of breaches. Even those responsible for securing the most advanced military networks are coupling their efforts to shore up defenses with enhancing their threat and breach detection capabilities. Once a cyber-criminal or cyber-warrior successfully enters a network, they’re more difficult to detect today than ever before. If credentials are compromised or a host is breached, the digital fingerprints of the attacker are buried amidst the massive volume of log and activity data generated through normal activity. Today, those responsible for the continuous monitoring and securing of our military networks are changing their approach to security intelligence. They’re looking beyond their complex first generation SIEM solutions that have been difficult to use and manage, limited in their effectiveness by the sheer volume of false positives they generate and restricted in the level of access they provide to critical forensic data. They’re turning to SIEM 2.0 in increasing numbers to bolster their ability to detect advanced threats and breaches, and to respond more quickly with actionable intelligence. Q: How is LogRhythm empowering the U.S. military today to combat cyber-threats? 28 | MIT 16.9
Certificate of Networthiness; DADMS; and ATOs—Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, Army and DHS. Q: What other unique benefits does your company provide its customers in comparison with other companies in your field? A: Today’s increasingly advanced cyber-threat landscape and the ever-changing government security mandates and compliance requirements have the U.S. military looking for help. LogRhythm’s SIEM 2.0 platform is providing that help as the cornerstone in the continuous monitoring architecture. LogRhythm’s comprehensive out-of-the-box compliance packages, real-time security dashboards, incident management and integrations with other industry leading security technologies, such as HBSS, Qualys and Sourcefire, contribute to the unparalleled value offered by our next generation security intelligence platform. Specifically, LogRhythm has been empowering the U.S. military with industry leading cyber-threat defense, detection and response solutions since 2007. Our military customers span the branches of the U.S. armed forces with SIEM 2.0 deployments around the globe: from installations in Afghanistan monitoring military networks for cyber-terrorist attacks to installations focused on securing the networks that support sea-bound vessels for the Navy. LogRhythm’s SIEM 2.0 platform is collecting data from disparate COTS and GOTS solutions and delivering advanced threat detection and response capabilities, coupled with compliance automation and assurance that is unmatched by any other SIEM offering. LogRhythm’s unique system-monitor agents enable real-time collection of critical information from mobile field devices and units. These purpose-built agents transport the data in numerous methods back to command for assessment and action. In addition, the unidirectional data communication capabilities provide organizations the ability to pass data up the classified network chain without the risk of data backflow. LogRhythm’s long list of certifications also assists organizations stay within the designated product guidelines. Current certifications include: FIPS 140-2; Common Criteria;
A: LogRhythm’s comprehensive log management and SIEM 2.0 solution helps federal organizations comply with a myriad of regulations, such as FISMA and DoDI, and combat cyber-threats. It is an enterprise-class platform that seamlessly combines log management and SIEM 2.0, file integrity monitoring, and host activity monitoring into a single integrated solution to address multiple components of the CAESARS framework and provides FISMA-related security data that can be fed into CyberScope. It addresses an ever-changing landscape of threats and challenges with a full suite of high-performance tools. LogRhythm’s patented SIEM 2.0 platform delivers: • Advanced correlation and pattern recognition • Multi-dimensional behavioral analytics • Independent host activity monitoring • File integrity monitoring • Powerful, rapid forensics • Ease of use and simplified management • Common controls for rapid adoption. LogRhythm is architected to support unidirectional communication for operating within classified military environments: • Integration with one-way data diodes • Fully encrypted communication for secure collection • Multi-tenant architecture for logical data segregation • Granular, role-based access controls • Standard STIG documentation for any deployment. A LogRhythm deployment can be implemented in any combination of hardware, software and virtual instances. O www.MIT-kmi.com
Certificate of Networthiness
CONTINUOUS MONITORING
Common Criteria
SIEM 2.0 | See what you’re missing.
COMPLIANCE AUTOMATION & ASSURANCE (FISMA, DIACAP, NEI...)
APT DETECTION
Systems hacked? Data breached? Credentials compromised? In today’s IT environment, it’s a question of when, not if. LogRhythm’s SIEM 2.0 security intelligence platform provides a certified solution for Federal and classified environments that is as easy to deploy as it is to use – at a price that fits within your budget. It’s time to see what you’ve been missing. Call 1-866-384-0713 to learn more or schedule a demo. Or visit www.LogRhythm.com/federal
A 2012 LEADER SIEM Magic Quadrant
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