The Cyber Edge

The concern of machine ethics and laws spills into the everyday workings of society, not just the domain of defense. Many concepts revolve around the law of armed conflict, societal law, ethical dilemmas, psychological concepts and artificially intelligent cyber systems, as well as their relationships among each other. In addition to the delineation of machine ethic guidelines, an ethical life cycle is necessary to account for changes over time in national circumstances and personal beliefs. Just recently, the Defense Innovation Board, which serves as an advisory board to the Pentagon, met and published ethical guidelines in designing and implementing artificially intelligent weapons.

As people around the world practice self-isolation in an effort to reduce exposure and spreading of the COVID-19 virus, the need to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture arguably has never been higher. Millions of people have shifted their daily lives to an environment relying on telework, distance learning, Internet-enabled social engagement, streaming news and entertainment and other activities.

This “new normal” is facilitated by the robust capabilities of the Internet. Yet it presents a significant cyber risk. During the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve seen bad actors stepping up their game with increased incidents of phishing, disinformation, watering hole attacks and other criminal activity.

The bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission today issued a call to action on cybersecurity. The commission issued a report sounding the alarm on the nation’s lack of security in cyberspace.

“The reality is that we are dangerously insecure in cyber. Your entire life—your paycheck, your health care, your electricity—increasingly relies on networks of digital devices that store, process and analyze data. These networks are vulnerable, if not already compromised,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin), co-chairs of the commission, write in a letter introducing the report.

When the National Counterintelligence and Security Center designated April as National Supply Chain Integrity Month, it cited threats that cost the country innovation, jobs and economic advantage. It also mentioned a reduction of U.S. military strength as the need for increased awareness. Now as we approach the one-year anniversary of that designation, threats—especially cybersecurity threats—continue to grow and evolve. These give the military-industrial base new reasons to refocus on the security of contractors, subcontractors and suppliers.

The much-hyped 5G has begun to arrive, but in the United States, the truly transformative elements of these next-generation cellular networks are probably still four or five years off. Although improvements such as 100-times-faster speeds will enable more life-and-death type services, including remote surgery or self-driving cars, they also employ a more compromised hardware supply chain and offer a larger attack surface than current networks, federal officials warn.

“The anxiety from governments and regulators about the security issues [arising from 5G] and possible nation-state interference is at a fever pitch right now,” Robert Mayer, senior vice president for cybersecurity, USTelecom, says.

Long-discussed cybersecurity issues such as cultural attitudes, innovation and supply chain vulnerability are now at the top of the U.S. Navy’s information technology action list as it faces a multifaceted threat to information dominance. Current conditions present a sense of urgency in efforts to upgrade Navy and Marine Corps information assets, but the services also face a window of opportunity that they can exploit.

It’s easy to forget that in the midst of a catastrophe, physical safety isn’t the only thing that’s important. As technology’s role in disaster response and relief becomes more and more prevalent, cybersecurity becomes an essential part of the process. Here’s why.

Few people are more vulnerable than those impacted by a crisis. Whether a man-made attack or a natural disaster, the widespread destruction created by a large-scale emergency can leave countless individuals both destitute and in need of medical attention. Protecting these men, women and children requires more than a coordinated emergency response.

The Pentagon is looking to buy an enterprisewide identity management system to provide a single authoritative source of user information, identity authentication and information technology access for millions of U.S. Defense Department computer network users. The Defense Information Systems Agency’s call for white papers on the development and deployment of a Defense Department Enterprise Identity Service is the first step in identifying two or three vendors to take part in a competitive prototyping contest under an other transaction authority effort.

Last year was a banner year for cyber fraud. In just the first six months of 2019, more than 3,800 breaches exposed 4.1 billion records, with 3.2 billion of those records exposed by just eight breaches. The scale of last year’s data breaches underscores the fact that identity has become the currency of the digital world and data is the fuel that powers the digital economy. What’s also clear looking back on 2019 is that digital identities are continually being compromised on multiple levels.