U.S. Army calls for more advanced Cyber Defense Tech

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

The US Army is seeking to equip its cyber warriors with cutting-edge networking hardware, and it is going outside the traditional acquisitions system to do it.

The easily transportable “fly-away” kit of hardware and software would travel with the Army’s cyber protection teams, whose job involves hunting inside the military’s networks for intrusions and fighting off cyber attacks.

The Army issued a pre-solicitation notice June 19 for the equipment, called a deployable defensive cyberspace operations infrastructure capability, which would provide commanders with tools for “quick reaction, cyber defense reinforcement, and security enhancement capabilities.”

According to Defense News, the kits would interface with Army networks to let the teams, “conduct countermeasures in real-time enabling commanders to take immediate action in the execution of network defense”.

The cyber protection teams work for the military’s geographic commands the world over, and are organized to perform one of five key cyber defensive mission functions: mission protection, discovery and counter infiltration, cyber threat emulation, inspection, and cyber support.

Though the Army has fielded 11 hardware kits for these teams, it is seeking next-generation gear that is smaller and lighter, and better able to ingest and analyze large amounts of data, Army officials said.

The presolicitation is for an industry and innovation challenge meant to take advantage of cutting-edge technology outside the traditional federal acquisition system. The winners of the challenge would provide pilot or prototype equipment for an operational evaluation.