By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR
WASHINGTON: What does Cyber Command demand manufacture to invent ASAP? Simulators that capture the total complexity of cyber warfare in addition to command systems that exhibit the virtual battle raging inwards existent time, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said this forenoon at CyCon US, a U.S. of A. of America Army–NATO cyber conference.
It’s an irony of the information age. The U.S. of A. of America state of war machine has plenty of simulators to prepare pilots, sailors, tank crews, in addition to fifty-fifty foot troops inwards physical combat. It has plenty of command-and-control systems to feed commanders information on what planes, ships, tanks, in addition to troops are doing inwards physical operations. But it doesn’t receive got comparable figurer systems to either prepare for or to command operations inwards cyberspace — the real sort of conflict where computers are both the weapons in addition to the battlefield.
Here’s irony, squared: Until cyber operators tin both prepare realistically in addition to consider the their digital battlespace every bit clearly every bit traditional commanders consider physicalbattlespace, they’ll live on hard-pressed to defend everyone else’s systems. That agency hackers could potentially plough off all those screens or, worse, create total them amongst false data.
Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar
Drowning In Data
“You cannot become into a combat operations pump 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 inwards our combat operations pump are absolutely accurate. The ones in addition to zeros that brand upwardly the painting on those displays are determination character ones in addition to zeroes in addition to we’re making life in addition to decease decisions on them every unmarried day….What if we’re wrong?”
Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart
It’s non that cyber operators are curt of information on what’s happening inwards the diverse networks they are trying to monitor, defend or attack. To the contrary: They’re drowning inwards data, coming inwards at high speed from multiple systems — at which hollo for the unaided human encephalon has to somehow position it all together.
Stewart snarkily called this “carbon-based fusion,” human bodies existence to a greater extent than oftentimes than non carbon in addition to water. That’s every bit 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 amidst aircraft. Coming upwardly amongst a command-and-control organization that fuses information from across the entire forcefulness — land, sea, air, in addition to outer infinite every bit good every bit 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 inwards the future. Today, Cyber Command has a long way to go, Stewart said: “Right, nosotros receive got X release of digital displays we’re trying to kludge together, amongst (someone) similar me looking at 27 displays in addition to trying to figure where it all connects. Even amongst smart, experienced, well-trained operators, that takes vital hours, minutes, seconds when the enemy may live on moving inwards milliseconds.”
Just putting all the relevant information together on 1 covert is a complex problem, non alone technically but for policy. “How produce you lot receive got classified information, meld it amongst unclassified information, meld amongst proprietary information from commercial partners” — non to advert data from unusual allies — “and in addition to hence shipping that information dorsum out every bit appropriate to live on helpful?” Stewart asked. “If you’re going to convey all that information into the space, you lot demand about sort of integrated cyber picture. Guess what, ladies in addition to gentlemen, nosotros haven’t got an integrated cyber picture.”
“That’s got to live on 1 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, in addition to aggregate it inwards such a way nosotros tin position it 1 house inwards multiple layers in addition to brand feel out of it?” Stewart continued. “So if anyone inwards manufacture wants to solve that problem, you lot powerfulness larn a buyer.”
Senior defense forcefulness in addition to manufacture officials tell it may live on every bit long every bit a decade earlier a genuinely representative in addition to useful representation of the cyber battlefield is available.
The Miniature Air-Launched Decoy offers the unique combination of modularity, reliability, in addition to toll efficiency, making this effector a vital weapon inwards whatever arsenal.
Cyber Command also urgently needs grooming simulations that tin ready its operators for the complexity, speed, in addition to interconnection of cyber warfare, rather than narrow technical grooming inwards how to role a item software tool. “We soundless haven’t created the grooming environs that challenges us enough,” Stewart said, “where nosotros tin larn that higher degree 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 ready that. Anybody who wants to ready that Ender’s Game grooming environs for cyberspace, you lot powerfulness larn a buyer.”
Building the grooming simulator in addition to edifice the command-and-control organization are really 2 dissimilar aspects of a unmarried problem: capturing vast amounts of fast-moving information from multiple sources, sorting out the chaff, in addition to presenting the critical information inwards an intuitive way. Sure, the information coming into the simulator is made up, spell the information coming into the command-and-control organization is (hopefully) real, but much of the software tin in addition to indeed should live on the same.
(SPOILER ALERT for a five-year quondam moving painting in addition to a 33-year-old novel: The big twist at the terminate of Ender’s Game is that what the protagonists hollo back is a grooming simulation turns out to live on a command-and-control organization sending existent troops out to kill in addition to die).
A Navy depiction of the “cyber kill chain”The occupation amongst theEnder’s Game analogy, however, is that the simulation inwards the sci-fi floor was fairly simple: a bunch of ships zooming in addition to zapping inwards empty space, which is a straightforward physics occupation of the sort computers handgrip easily. It’s much harder for computers to brand feel of Blue Planet warfare, which is total of irregular terrain in addition to moving objects. (That’s why unmanned aircraft are inwards widespread service spell unmanned Blue Planet vehicles soundless experimental).
Cyber warfare is fifty-fifty harder to visualize, because it occurs inwards a battlefield that tin alter shape inwards seconds if someone shuts downwards a server, for example, or connects a novel organization 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 you lot may non receive got intended to affect.
This fluid battlespace is difficult for traditional commanders to comprehend, which is why grooming in addition to command visualizations are hence important. “I came on active duty inwards 1981,” Stewart said. “I had a tank platoon for a while, nosotros were going to become across the Fulda Gap, in addition to nosotros were going to create produce tanks versus tanks.”
“When you lot become off to produce combat operations,” Stewart went on, “one of the showtime things you lot produce is you lot start talking nearly battlefield geometry. What are my left in addition to correct lateral limits? What is the depth of the battlefield? What’s my terrain expect like?”
But “what does the terrain expect similar inwards cyberspace?” he asked. In the physical world, if your tank platoon comes to a river, you lot demand to discovery a duo or a ford to cross, Stewart said. You can’t only plough the ariver off. If something’s blocking your operations inwards cyberspace however, maybe you lot tin plough if off.
Capturing that sort of complexity — inwards training simulations, command-and-controlnetworks, in addition to inwards the state of war machine hear — is going to live on a tremendous technical in addition to intellectual challenge.
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