Tag Archive for: joint

To Build Joint Command and Control, First Break Joint Command and Control

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The crowd favorite in the Korean War section of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is a B-29 Superfortress known as Command Decision. Named after a 1948 movie that recounted the Army Air Forces’ decision-making during World War II, the plane shot down five MiG-15 fighters, dropped over one million pounds of bombs, and has iconic nose art featuring two of the seven dwarfs — Dopey and Doc — waiting apprehensively for a flipped coin to land.

Behind the Command Decision is a smaller, less popular exhibit about command and control during the Korean War. The exhibit includes a diagram illustrating how command and control was organized at the time — it offers a visual of how messages were relayed and who assigned resources to specific tasks. That picture is notable because, with minor changes, it could feature in any of the museum’s sections. It depicts a hierarchical, industrial-age structure, and could describe command and control in World War II, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or at any point in the intervening period.

While still not exactly a crowd favorite, command and control is currently experiencing something of a renaissance as U.S. military leaders seek more interoperability between the different military services, less hierarchy in military networks, and systems that enable faster decision-making. The military has requested $3 billion to remake the system. The problem, though, is that the effort is focused almost entirely on the technology of command and control. The Defense Department is currently buying modular communications equipment that can connect people regardless of military service, building universal networks and data repositories, and developing decision-support tools that rely more on machine learning. While this technological disruption is necessary, it is insufficient.

The organizational structure of command and control should also be changed. The U.S. military should break up its current command and control system and replace it with small, modular teams that are not strictly aligned with a particular military service. This would help the system to deliver operational outputs faster and from multiple services at a given time. This…

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US and UK Issue Joint Alert on Russian Cyber Activity

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Critical Infrastructure Security
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Cybercrime
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Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks

SVR’s TTPs and General Tradecraft Detailed

Doug Olenick (DougOlenick) •
May 8, 2021    

US and UK Issue Joint Alert on Russian Cyber Activity

U.S. and U.K. cyber, law enforcement and intelligence agencies issued a joint advisory Friday offering detailed information on how to defend against the activities of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, in the wake of the 2020 SolarWinds attacks.

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The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency say the SVR, through its threat group APT29, will continue to attack, so organizations need to understand the threat facing them.

“APT29 will continue to seek intelligence from U.S. and foreign entities through cyber exploitation, using a range of initial exploitation techniques that vary in sophistication, coupled with stealthy intrusion tradecraft within compromised networks. The SVR primarily targets government networks, think tank and policy analysis organizations, and information technology companies,” CISA says in its own alert.


CISA attributed the SolarWinds supply chain attack that resulted in follow-on attacks on nine government departments and 100 private companies to APT29, also known as The Dukes, Cozy Bear and Yttrium. The agency notes that the SVR’s cyber operations have posed a…

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Estonia, U.S. Conduct Joint Defensive Cyber Operation > U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE > Defense Department News

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U.S. Cyber Command conducted a joint defensive cyber operation with the Estonian Defense Forces’ cyber command on EDF networks, Sept. 23-Nov. 6. The operation was designed to counter malicious cyber actors and strengthened the cyber defense capability of both nations’ critical assets.

“Combined operations with our closest allies like [the] U.S. are vital for ensuring [the] security of our services,” Mihkel Tikk, the deputy commander of EDF’s cyber command, said.

“These kind[s] of operations provide our operators an opportunity to exchange best practices as well as give us objective feedback on our current defense posture in [the] cyber domain. This operation is another successful milestone in our cooperation with U.S. partners,” he said.

U.S. cyber specialists, referred to as “Hunt Forward” teams, and Estonian cyber personnel from Defense Forces Cyber Command, hunted for malicious cyber actors on critical networks and platforms. The U.S. has partnered with various countries throughout Europe, but this defensive cyber operation marked the first of its kind between the U.S. and Estonia.

“Despite the challenges of a global pandemic, we safely deployed to Estonia and other European countries for several weeks to gain unique insight into our adversaries’ activities that may impact the U.S.,” Army Brig. Gen. Joe Hartman, the commander of the Cyber National Mission Force, said.

“Our teams proactively hunt, identify and mitigate adversary malware and indicators,” he said. “We then share that malware broadly, not just with the U.S. government but with private cybersecurity industry and allies, which directly increases the overall security of U.S. critical infrastructure and related networks.”

For the U.S., the Hunt Forward teams play a crucial role in Cybercom’s “persistent engagement,” an effort aimed at countering malicious cyber activity below the level of warfare. Cybercom personnel are specially trained to secure and defend government networks and platforms against adversaries. The U.S. military’s “defend forward” strategy leverages key partnerships to address malicious cyber activity that could be used against U.S. critical…

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