Cyber Success Requires Cooperation and Innovation

Mission success in the cyber arena, especially in a constrained budget environment, requires both cooperation and innovation, but military and industry officials speaking at AFCEA TechNet Augusta 2014 say they are not yet seeing enough of either.

Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, USA, the new commanding general, U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, Fort Gordon, initiated the discussion, saying that cyber is “inherently joint,” and warning against stovepiped systems and information for different mission areas, such as cyber, signal and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Army, he said, has to cooperate with the other services, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, industry and multinational partners.

The various communities are not yet as connected as they need to be, he warned.

The Army is still building the Cyber Center of Excellence, and Gen. Fogarty already is seeing cooperation from others, such as the intelligence community and the Army chief information officer, who have contributed funding. The center of excellence is in “provisional status,” he reported, and milestones will be dependent on a variety of factors, including the availability of resources. “The good news is that we’re not in this by ourselves. We have great partners in Navy, great partners in the Air Force. We’re going to learn from them.

"We’re going to learn from the National Security Agency; we’re going to learn from the Defense Information Systems Agency,” Gen. Fogarty said.

Cooperation is key, but so is innovation. While serving on an industry panel, Mark Bigham, chief innovation officer for Raytheon Intelligence and Information Services, said that the pain associated with tight budgets can force innovation, but that defense companies are not quite there yet. “I’m not sure the budgets have been cut enough to drive us to the point where we’re really going to get innovative,” Bigham said.

He reported that marketing is driving big data analytics, and “it’s all about sending you a laser targeted ad.”

"With the Internet of everything, we’ll be able to track almost everyone and everything on the planet all the time. As a matter of fact, if you try to hide, you will leave a digital shadow.” He cited one case in which a company wanted to track people moving through their stores using the mobile devices people carried with them. By doing so, the company could determine where best to place particular products. If customers walked around the store with their cellphones turned off, the company would track them on video, and there would be a “blank spot” where the digital signal should have been. “So, they left a digital shadow,” said Bigham, adding that digital shadows can be used to track people who are trying to hide.

Fellow panelist Maj. Gen. Dennis Moran, USA (Ret.), a vice president of Harris Corporation, said that innovations from industry are benefiting the Army’s cyber and signal missions. “You’re starting to see the same kind of commercial capabilities make their way into the tactical Internet,” Moran said.

Another common challenge has been the inability of the requirements and acquisition processes to keep up with the pace of technological innovation and change. While serving on the industry panel, Joseph Sifer, a senior vice president for Booz Allen Hamilton, recommended the military stick with the rapid acquisition lessons learned during the war. “To me, that’s a better model, but unfortunately, the acquisition community is busy killing whatever they can of the concept of rapid equipping,” Sifer said.

He also recommended formation of a program executive office and a research and develop center, both dedicated to cyber.

Gen. Fogarty scoffed at the common misperception that cyber is a new arena. “We’ve been doing this for years, way before cyber became cool,” Gen. Fogarty said. “We have the experience. We have the knowledge. I’m not daunted. There is no insurmountable challenge as we look at the road ahead.”