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When consumers purchase smartphones, they don't come with bulky
instruction manuals, said Lt. Gen. Paul A. Ostrowski.
There's
a reason for that, said Ostrowski, principal military deputy to the
assistant secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and
Technology). Smartphones are designed to be used intuitively.
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July 20, 2017 - Army networks should be as intuitive and expeditionary as smartphones, said one of the force's top acquisition officers, speaking at the Association of the United States Army's Hot Topics seminar on "Army Networks".
(U.S. Army photo by Peggy Frierson)
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Besides being intuitive, smartphones can be used across
states and even across the world without having to be
adjusted for location, he said.
Army networks still
have a ways to go before they are as easy to use in an
expeditionary manner as smartphones, he said.
Ostrowski spoke Thursday at the Association of the United
States Army's Hot Topics seminar on "Army Networks."
Besides being intuitive and expeditionary, the network must
be secure and must be able to be integrated with each of the
services as well as with coalition partners, he said.
Additionally, networks must be maintained and operated
by Soldiers on the battlefield, he added.
In the
future fight, the Army will not have the luxury of field
service representatives running around the battlefield, he
said.
Brig. Gen. Joseph "JP" McGee, deputy commander
for Operations, U.S. Army Cyber Command, said another goal
for the future network is to simply identify and catalog
everything that's attached to it, from computers to
printers.
This Internet of things needs to be made as
invulnerable as possible. McGee added that there are still a
number of weaknesses to be addressed, but he declined to go
into detail on any of them due to operational security.
NETWORKS NEED STEM EXPERTISE
Air Force Maj. Gen. Burke "Ed" Wilson, deputy principal
cyber advisor to the secretary of Defense and senior
military advisor for cyber, Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense, said
that on a national level, more science, technology,
engineering and math needs to be taught to children at
younger ages, even in elementary school.
Having a good base of STEM knowledge, he said, is important
to the military's accessions mission.
He added that
he thinks the services are doing a surprisingly good job at
recruiting and retaining this talent.
Gary Wang,
acting Army chief information officer, G-6, said that those
who defend the networks need to have more blended training.
By blended, he explained getting Soldiers in electronic
warfare, intelligence, information technology and other
specialties trained together to operate effectively together
instead of being stove-piped. That approach is now being
applied throughout the Army, he said.
Wang added that
the pace of hostile cyberattacks has accelerated recently.
Instead of single viruses, hackers have devised "a mashup of
viruses" that offer more sophisticated attacks.
TAPPING INDUSTRY FOR SOLUTIONS
To counter these threats, Wang said the Army will need
to tap industry to automate responses to cyberattacks using cognitive networks,
artificial intelligence, neural networks, pattern
recognition, automation and big data.
Brig. Gen.
Maria B. Barrett, deputy director of Current Operations,
J-3, U.S. Cyber Command, said the Army is tapping into
industry solutions through participation in the Defense
Innovation Unit Experimental, or DIUx.
DIUx has
military representatives in Silicon Valley, California, and
other high-tech centers in the U.S., to stay abreast of
innovative technologies that can be applied to network
protection.
Maj. Gen. Garrett S. Yee, military
deputy/Cyber Security Office of the Chief Information
Officer/G-6, said that additionally, Fort Gordon, Georgia,
hosted a Cyber Quest last month, in which 27 industries
showed interests in providing the latest technologies in
cyber and electronic warfare.
Cyber Quest is a
cyber/electronic warfare experimentation and collaboration
between Soldiers, industry and Army researchers together.
Yee predicted that more industries will show interest in
future Cyber Quests.
Ostrowski said that the Army is
investing a lot of money in cybersecurity. It's currently
second in dollars spent after aviation.
The Army has
also been reaching out to numerous industry partners and
will soon have a second roundtable discussion with them. All
ideas are welcome from industry, he added. "This is a call
to action. Failure is unacceptable.
"If we fail to
achieve that vision of the network, we fail as a nation,"
Ostrowski said. "This is serious stuff. We have to get on
with next-generation capability."
By U.S. Army David Vergun
Army News Service
Copyright 2017
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