By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: What does Cyber Command demand manufacture to invent ASAP? Simulators that capture the total complexity of cyber warfare too command systems that exhibit the virtual battle raging inward existent time, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said this morn at CyCon US, a the States Army–NATO cyber conference. It’s an irony of the information age. The the States armed forces has plenty of simulators to prepare pilots, sailors, tank crews, too fifty-fifty foot troops inward physical combat. It has plenty of command-and-control systems to feed commanders information on what planes, ships, tanks, too troops are doing inward physical operations. But it doesn’t receive got comparable estimator systems to either prepare for or to command operations inward cyberspace — the real sort of conflict where computers are both the weapons too the battlefield.
Here’s irony, squared: Until cyber operators tin both prepare realistically too regard the their digital battlespace equally clearly equally traditional commanders regard physicalbattlespace, they’ll move hard-pressed to defend everyone else’s systems. That agency hackers could potentially plough off all those screens or, worse, fill upwardly them amongst false data.
Drowning In Data
“You cannot become into a combat operations middle today without an incredible array of digital displays,” said Stewart, the Marine three-star who’s deputy commander of the newly independent CyberCom. “And everybody believes those digital displays inward our combat operations middle are absolutely accurate. The ones too zeros that brand upwardly the painting on those displays are conclusion character ones too zeroes too we’re making life too expiry decisions on them every unmarried day….What if we’re wrong?”
It’s non that cyber operators are brusk of information on what’s happening inward the diverse networks they are trying to monitor, defend or attack. To the contrary: They’re drowning inward data, coming inward at high speed from multiple systems — at which indicate the unaided human encephalon has to somehow set it all together.
Stewart snarkily called this “carbon-based fusion,” human bodies beingness generally carbon too water. That’s equally opposed to computers — silicon — automatically fusing the dissimilar information streams into a single, clear painting that the human tin intuitively understand. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter cockpit is a model of cutting-edge information fusion amid aircraft. Coming upwardly amongst a command-and-control organisation that fuses information from across the entire forcefulness — land, sea, air, too outer infinite equally good equally cyberspace — is the focus of the interservice Multi-Domain Command & Control(MDC2) effort, a personal priority for Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein.
But MDC2 is inward the future. Today, Cyber Command has a long way to go, Stewart said: “Right, nosotros receive got X divulge of digital displays we’re trying to kludge together, amongst (someone) similar me looking at 27 displays too trying to figure where it all connects. Even amongst smart, experienced, well-trained operators, that takes vital hours, minutes, seconds when the enemy may move moving inward milliseconds.”
Just putting all the relevant information together on i concealment is a complex problem, non exclusively technically but for policy. “How produce y'all receive got classified information, meld it amongst unclassified information, meld amongst proprietary information from commercial partners” — non to refer data from unusual allies — “and hence shipping that information dorsum out equally appropriate to move helpful?” Stewart asked. “If you’re going to convey all that information into the space, y'all demand around sort of integrated cyber picture. Guess what, ladies too gentlemen, nosotros haven’t got an integrated cyber picture.”
“That’s got to move i of our highest priorities: how produce nosotros larn all of that data, all of the disparate information links nosotros have, the incredible amount of data, too aggregate it inward such a way nosotros tin set it i house inward multiple layers too brand feel out of it?” Stewart continued. “So if anyone inward manufacture wants to solve that problem, y'all mightiness larn a buyer.”
Senior defense forcefulness too manufacture officials state it may move equally long equally a decade earlier a genuinely representative too useful representation of the cyber battlefield is available.
Military prodigy Ender Wiggin trains amongst a VR command-and-control organisation inward the motion-picture exhibit “Ender’s Game.”
Building Ender’s Game
Cyber Command also urgently needs grooming simulations that tin fix its operators for the complexity, speed, too interconnection of cyber warfare, rather than narrow technical grooming inward how to role a detail software tool. “We silent haven’t created the grooming surround that challenges us enough,” Stewart said, “where nosotros tin larn that higher score of analytic thinking because we’re pushing people to their maximum.”
Stewart’s vision for the cyber simulator is ambitious. “Anyone read the mass Ender’s Game?” he asked. “We demand to fix that. Anybody who wants to fix that Ender’s Game grooming surround for cyberspace, y'all mightiness larn a buyer.”
Building the grooming simulator too edifice the command-and-control organisation are really 2 dissimilar aspects of a unmarried problem: capturing vast amounts of fast-moving information from multiple sources, sorting out the chaff, too presenting the critical information inward an intuitive way. Sure, the information coming into the simulator is made up, piece the information coming into the command-and-control organisation is (hopefully) real, but much of the software tin too indeed should move the same.
(SPOILER ALERT for a five-year erstwhile motion-picture exhibit too a 33-year-old novel: The big twist at the halt of Ender’s Game is that what the protagonists remember is a grooming simulation turns out to move a command-and-control organisation sending existent troops out to kill too die).
A Navy depiction of the “cyber kill chain”The employment amongst theEnder’s Game analogy, however, is that the simulation inward the sci-fi storey was fairly simple: a bunch of ships zooming too zapping inward empty space, which is a straightforward physics employment of the sort computers grip easily. It’s much harder for computers to brand feel of the world warfare, which is total of irregular terrain too moving objects. (That’s why unmanned aircraft are inward widespread service piece unmanned the world vehicles silent experimental). Cyber warfare is fifty-fifty harder to visualize, because it occurs inward a battlefield that tin modify shape inward seconds if someone shuts downward a server, for example, or connects a novel organisation to the wider network. That changing terrain agency the effects of your “weapons” — your hacking tools — are unpredictable, potentially cascading from your target to connected systems y'all may non receive got intended to affect.
This fluid battlespace is difficult for traditional commanders to comprehend, which is why grooming too command visualizations are hence important. “I came on active duty inward 1981,” Stewart said. “I had a tank platoon for a while, nosotros were going to become across the Fulda Gap, too nosotros were going to grapple tanks versus tanks.”
“When y'all become off to produce combat operations,” Stewart went on, “one of the outset things y'all produce is y'all start talking well-nigh battlefield geometry. What are my left too correct lateral limits? What is the depth of the battlefield? What’s my terrain expect like?”
But “what does the terrain expect similar inward cyberspace?” he asked. In the physical world, if your tank platoon comes to a river, y'all demand to uncovering a twain or a ford to cross, Stewart said. You can’t simply plough the river off. If something’s blocking your operations inward cyberspace however, maybe y'all tin plough if off.
Capturing that sort of complexity — inward training simulations, command-and-controlnetworks, too inward the armed forces heed — is going to move a tremendous technical too intellectual challenge.
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