In a world where U.S. peer competitors and rogue countries possess the capability to conduct missile-based nuclear strikes, a persistent space-based defense is the only way to ensure we're never surprised by or unprepared to defend ourselves against such attacks. "To protect the U.S., we want to get notification of any missile launches as early as possible from anywhere on the globe," explains Jenny Newbury, thread lead for Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) performance on Northrop Grumman's Next-Generation Polar (NGP) satellite program. "But we also don't want to wake up the president with a false alarm." NGP satellites comprise the polar-orbiting component of the U.S. Space Force's Next-Generation OPIR program, the nation's newest missile warning system. Northrop Grumman serves as the Space Force's prime contractor for NGP. The company is also developing sensor payloads for Next-Gen OPIR satellites operating in geosynchronous orbits (GEO). Ensuring Persistence Not surprisingly, infrared technology is central to the OPIR mission. "A boosting missile is very hot, so we always want to look for that heat in the infrared portion of the spectrum," advises Newbury. "The advantage of monitoring the Earth from space, of course, is that you can watch the entire disk of the Earth for missile launches in a steady, persistent way." Satellite infrared technology can also be used to detect and provide early warning to populations on Earth about forest fires, she adds. Northrop Grumman has been developing early warning satellites since the 1960s when it produced 12 Vela satellites designed to detect nuclear tests in space and the atmosphere. The company also designed and produced the nation's GEO constellation of Defense Support Program early warning satellites, which became the spaceborne segment of the North American Aerospace Defense Command's Tactical Warning and Assessment System in 1970. Optimizing the Constellation Since missile attacks can originate anywhere on the globe, developing and maintaining an effective space-based defense system requires deploying missile warning satellites in a variety of orbits. Current missile warning systems typically use four to six GEO satellites and two satellites in highly elliptical (polar) orbits (HEO), advises Newbury. While GEO satellites have a fairly direct view of the "middle" two-thirds of the Earth disk, their views of the poles are limited by their oblique viewing angle of those regions. "Satellites in HEO can look straight down at the poles," says Newbury. "That's significant because the quickest route to the U.S. for a ballistic missile traveling from China, Russia or North Korea would go right over the North Pole." The other advantage of HEOs, she adds, is that you can always downlink sensor data directly to the U.S., which is good from a security perspective. Choosing the Best Infrared Technology Space-based defense systems typically use several IR frequency bands. "When we're trying to detect missile launches as early as possible, we use shortwave infrared technology, which allows us to see through the atmosphere, all the way to the ground," explains Newbury. "Unfortunately, with those IR frequencies, we also get a lot of clutter, i.e., things that look like detections but aren't." That's where mid-IR and long-wave IR signals come in handy, she adds. These signals are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so once the missile rises above the clouds, satellite sensors can see it and track it easily against a plain background. "If you want to get a closer look at that missile or warhead, you'll also need two or three satellites in low Earth orbits (LEO) to get an accurate track. These satellites tend to have sensors operating in a variety of bands." Engineering the Mission Designing and optimizing a space-based defense mission — deciding everything from how many satellites to put in orbit and what types of sensors should be used, to how best to process and relay data to ground operators — is the domain of seasoned mission engineers like Steven Warwick, mission performance modeling and simulation lead for Northrop Grumman's OPIR and Geospatial Systems business unit. "We start with how is this data going to be used, who's going to be using it and what are they trying to achieve with it?" he explains. "Once we know why we need the data, we can optimize our approach for getting it." Warwick and his team use orbital visualization tools such as the system tool kit (STK) and an internal Northrop Grumman-developed tool called Thorn to define the optimum geometry of satellites for achieving the desired space-based defense mission. "Mission engineers model different types of targets traveling on different trajectories with unique thermal signatures to see how they look against the Earth under different atmospheric conditions," Warwick clarifies. "We also rely on skilled Northrop Grumman mission analysts to identify how best to correlate an observed threat profile with a particular type of target." Ensuring Attribution Strategically, Warwick suggests, the name of the game in missile defense is attribution. "We want to be very sure of who launches an attack against us but also to let our enemies know that we have a system that will absolutely tell us who launched an attack against us," he says. Warwick hopes that such a scenario never plays out, of course, but the rules of an effective space-based defense remain ironclad. "If we detect a launch, we must produce a high-accuracy track of that missile, and then retain 'custody' of that track to ensure that we can predict where it's going to land," he says.  Maintaining Track Achieving and maintaining that track, however, requires significant data processing. "The large-format focal planes of early warning satellites gather hundreds of millions of pixels of threat data per second, which can stress the capabilities of a typical comm downlink," Warwick suggests. "In that case, a satellite will do some processing on board to try to identify the pixels that matter most and send those pixels to the ground for further processing." The key challenge, he stresses, is to keep the true detections and throw away the false ones. Maintaining track of an incoming target is also being challenged by evolving weapon technology, Warwick says. "Traditional ballistic missile warheads, once separated from their booster, follow a gravity-driven trajectory, which makes it relatively easy to determine their point of impact," he explains. "By contrast, hypersonic weapons, once released, begin maneuvering at the very top of the atmosphere, which makes them much more difficult to track." Rethinking the Mission Newbury believes that hypersonic weapons may also be changing the way her customers think about how best to track and engage these more advanced targets. "I think there's more utility for LEO and medium Earth orbit (MEO) systems where you want to get closer to your target," she says. "I also expect to see increased use of sensors operating in different parts of the spectrum to track newer targets that are very dim and may be maneuvering." Northrop Grumman is well positioned to address this mission, Newbury believes, because of its development of two Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) demonstrator satellites for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency in the early 2000s. Now retired, the STSS satellites proved the ability to use infrared technology to detect missile launches, track missiles from boost phase through midcourse flight, and communicate with missile defense command and control forces on the ground. Meeting New Challenges However it shakes out, claims Newbury, the U.S. is rising to the challenge of detecting increasingly sophisticated missile threats. "The big difference between current U.S. space-based missile warning systems and Next-Gen OPIR is that the payloads will be faster and better," she says. "We're basically using the same payloads for GEO and HEO, which will give us much larger views of the polar areas." The payloads for NGP, she continues, will not only perform traditional onboard processing of missile warning data but will also be able to download all of those pixels to the ground on every pass. This new capability will enable analysts on the ground to develop new missile warning and tracking algorithms from the raw data while also allowing payload engineers to evaluate the payload's health and performance. FORGEing the Future The nation's newest space-based defense systems, Newbury continues, will also be the first to become a part of the Space Force's new Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) Mission Data Processing Application Framework (MDPAF), as Raytheon Intelligence & Space explains. "Traditional missile warning satellites have been designed to communicate primarily with their own network of ground stations," she notes. "By contrast, the FORGE framework is designed to take in data from lots of different satellite systems and exploit it for the benefit of all users." Delivering Confidence Ultimately, counsels Warwick, space-based surveillance and tracking are all about protecting the U.S. from missile attacks. "The number-one job of our space-based defense system is to provide a track of high enough accuracy and low enough latency to give a ground-based interceptor the opportunity to do something about it," he says. "You better not say there's been a missile launch when there isn't one, and you better not miss one." Being on the forefront of change, especially regarding space, physics, and engineering has been part of the Northrop Grumman culture for generations. Click here to search jobs in these areas of scientific innovation.

Nation's Space-Based Defense Hinges on Infrared Technology

 Cyberattacks make for big headlines. Hacked companies (and other organizations) get hit with a triple whammy. First of all, they are hit with the costs of the attack itself, such as the losses resulting from stolen or exposed confidential data. Second, they face a public backlash. Individuals who become hacking victims may get sympathy, but hacked organizations rarely do. More often, they suffer a wave of media embarrassment at the least. Along with the headlines may come a loss of customers' confidence, especially if customer data such as credit card numbers was stolen. Legal consequences are yet another possibility for hacked companies. Finally, hacked organizations need to upgrade their cybersecurity systems and procedures, and do it on an urgency basis. Like having to call the plumber on Saturday night, emergency assistance does not come cheap. Behind the Scenes of a Hack But what actually happens when companies get hacked? What is a hack, anyway? There is no formal technical definition of "hacking," and no one single way that computers and computer networks get hacked. Most often, we think in terms of malware — short for malicious software — such as viruses, worms and so forth. But not all cyberattacks involve malware. If an authorized user is tricked into revealing their password to a thief, the thief can then simply log in using the victim's password, then download, delete or alter data using the normal tools available to legitimate users within the organization. And, as Kelly Sheridan reports at DARKReading, attacks of this sort are all too common. Human factors are one of the two major causes of major security breaches, or in everyday language, hacks. The term "social engineering" is now applied to the bag of tricks by which cybercriminals use the human factor to gain access to company networks. One leading type of social engineering is spear phishing. Phishing is the general term for an email that tries to trick the recipient into clicking on a malicious attachment or visiting a malicious webpage. Spear phishing has the added twist that the email is targeted specifically for the intended victim — for example, having the name and email address of a friend or co-worker. The popularity of social networks has made social engineering attacks easier by making people's personal connections easier to trace online. And because there is no purely technological solution to human error, social engineering attacks are likely to become even more prominent in the future. Bad (Cyber) Hygiene The other leading cause of security breaches is deficiencies in cyber hygiene — failures in the procedures, such as updating software patches, that are designed to protect computers and computer networks against technological malware attacks. Even good cyber hygiene will not protect against all technological hacking attacks. So-called "zero day" attacks employ malware or system vulnerabilities that security professionals have never before seen, and against which there are thus no established defenses. Zero day threats are what keep security researchers busy. But they are not the only thing that keeps cybersecurity professionals awake at night. All too often, hacked companies have fallen victim to means of attack that were already known. In these cases, protective measures were available — but the company failed to implement them. One security expert, Roger A. Grimes, writing at InfoWorld, says that "I've never come across a fully patched computer. Some critical patch is always missing." Looking at cybersecurity challenges in broad perspective, we could say that hacked companies are ultimately victims of complexity. As our computer systems have grown more powerful, they have also become more complex. This opens the way for both ordinary human errors that social engineering can exploit and for institutional errors such as failing to keep software patches fully updated. And complexity continues to grow. The growth of artificial intelligence and autonomous systems will create both new security challenges and new security opportunities as we enlist cutting-edge technologies as security allies — all of which will ensure that cybersecurity experts face both a challenging and rewarding future.

How Do Hacked Companies Get Hacked?

 Drone warfare is about to change in ways that could change the nature of warfare itself.  Right now, ISIS has figured out how to weaponize off-the-shelf drones, using quadcopters to drop bombs on Iraqi soldiers. Their use of attack drones has made the hobbyist aircraft the latest asymmetrical threat, evolving from use for reconnaissance into a scaled-down, $200 version of the attack drones used widely by the U.S. military in the Middle East.  With help from U.S. targeting technology, Iraqi fighters have been able to destroy some of those drones on the wing, Defense Systems reported in a February 2017 article. But the U.S. military is looking at more innovative ways to stop drone attacks. A system that jams radio transmissions used to control drones is already in testing, and the Pentagon would like to find other ways to protect targets from attack.  Each year, the Department of Defense hosts Black Dart, a live-fly, live-fire exercise for testing new counter-drone technology. Among the defenses against attack drones demonstrated there in 2016 was Northrop Grumman's Mobile Application for UAS Identification (MAUI). According to GlobalNewswire, it's a "mobile acoustic sensor that operates on Android cellphones and uses the phone's microphone to detect Group 1 drones" — those that weigh less than 20 pounds, fly lower than 1,200 feet and fly slower than 100 knots.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  In November, DARPA issued a request for proposals for a $63-million contract to develop drone-defense systems for military convoys, RT reported. One of the challenges is making such a system small and energy-efficient enough to ride aboard a Humvee or a 25-foot Coast Guard patrol boat.  France's military is developing a system that would satisfy that requirement, and hearkens back to medieval arts of war. A French military unit has raised four golden eagles from chicks, training them to attack and bring down drones, the Washington Post reports. If you saw the viral video of one drone's final moments in 2014, you know how effective birds of prey can be against your average quadcopter. [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AhDG_WBIQgc" width="560" height="315" ]  But the Pentagon isn't interested in eagles. The RFP specifically states that DARPA won't consider any proposals that use live animals. Lasers are also out.  Beyond defending against asymmetrical attacks using off-the-shelf drones turned deadly, the Pentagon may be looking ahead to defending against the next generation of attack drones. A system the Pentagon is developing, called Perdix, would employ a swarm of AI drones, each not much bigger than the size of a human hand. The drones, called Perdix, can communicate with each other, and learn and adapt to conditions in order to locate targets and communicate with weapons systems elsewhere, CBS reported.  Defending against an attack like that will require new technology — a fact demonstrated by an unnamed U.S. ally that used a $3-million Patriot missile to take down a $200 attack drone, as reported by Business Insider.  "You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles," Col. Travis Burdine, Air Force division chief for unmanned aircraft, said in April 2017, according to FlightGlobal. "But we're going to hit you with 10,000 [drones]."  That kind of tactic could be used to penetrate a nation's radar defenses, Burdine said, with some drones acting as decoys, others as target finders and still others carrying weapons, themselves.  Be at the forefront of cutting-edge research and development in drone technology by joining the team at Northrop Grumman.

An Answer to ISIS Attack Drones and a New Kind of Aerial Warfare

It's common knowledge today that anyone who gains unauthorized access to data in a computer system is called a hacker. But not all hackers are equal. In the world of cybersecurity, computer criminals are called black hat hackers and those who break into systems to expose vulnerabilities that need to be fixed are known as white hat hackers.  The terms are a nod to old-time Western movies, in which the villains wore black hats and the good guys wore white, explains Norton. And while black hat hackers get all the press, those engaged in ethical hacking get all the praise. Their role in cybersecurity is so critical, it's going mainstream. Fussing With Machines Hacking didn't always get such a bad rap. For centuries, it meant to chop or cut. But in 1955, members of the Tech Model Railroad Club at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used the word "hack" to mean "fussing with machines." The club meeting minutes from April of that year state that "Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing," reports Slate. No malicious intent was inferred.  As computers became more common and people began to understand how these machines could be manipulated, fussing with machines took on dark undertones. Wrong-doers began manipulating telecommunications systems in ways that allowed them to make expensive long-distance phone calls for free. Called phreaking, this activity eventually gave way to black hat hacking in the 1980s and 1990s, as thieves saw money-making opportunities in stealing and selling information, according to National Cyber Security Alliance. Kevin Mitnick became notorious during these years for penetrating the computer systems of Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation, Motorola, Netcom and Nokia. He became the first hacker to make the FBI's Most Wanted list, reports CISO Magazine, and was finally arrested in 1995. After spending five years in prison, Mitnick became a white hat hacker and started Mitnick Security, a computer security consulting business that deploys "Ghost Teams" of ethical hackers to test the cyberdefense systems of businesses. Mitnick may have helped put ethical hacking on the map, but it was IBM Vice President John Patrick who coined the term in 1995. He said that ethical hacking was "the goal of the majority of hackers, but the current media perception is that hackers are criminals," according to the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology. Today, that may be more accurate than ever before. About 30,000 websites are hacked every day, cybercriminals create 300,000 new pieces of malware daily and hackers steal 75 digital records per second, reports WebARX. Attacks can get expensive. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that IT security spending worldwide will exceed $1 trillion by 2021. Hacking for Good As computers, including Internet of Things devices, become ubiquitous, a growing and urgent need has arisen for digital security experts that can wage a counterattack. And ethical hackers, who make an average salary of more than $70,000 a year according to InfoSec Institute, have a multitude of training options. The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is one such group dedicated to growing the community of white hat hackers. The company was founded in 2003, and today is the world's largest cybersecurity technical certification body, providing training as a Certified Ethical Hacker, Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator, Certified Security Analyst and more in 145 countries. In addition to InfoSec Institute and EC-Council, other reputable hacker academies include Cybrary, Offensive Security, SANS and Hacker House, according to VPNMentor. Those trained in the art of ethical hacking will be tasked with assessing the security of a computer system and attempt to break in as a malicious hacker might — but in a legal manner. Indiana Tech notes that some job responsibilities might include:   Scan computer systems for vulnerable open ports, understand the threats it could face and develop a plan to prevent future attacks.  Dig into digital trash bins to locate deleted chats, passwords and other sensitive information that could be used against a company.  Examine software patches to make sure they're current.  Attempt to dodge Intrusion Prevention Systems, Intrusion Detection Systems, firewalls and honeypots to ensure a computer system has protections in place.  Check for malware, hijacked web servers or applications and other signs of malicious intent and fix them.  The need for white hat hackers is exploding. Small business, hospitals, large corporations and even local and state governments are being cyberattacked on a regular basis. Anyone from a tech-savvy high school student to a college-trained computer science engineer can make a career out of ethical hacking and keep the computer systems we rely on day in and day out safe.

White Hat Hackers on the Trail of Cybercriminals

The cost of identity theft is at an all-time high. The latest figures from the Federal Trade Commission indicated that although the number of consumer complaints about fraud dropped in 2017, people reported losing $905 million overall — $63 million more than they did in 2016. Investing in a couple of personal security devices could reduce one's risk of falling victim to identity theft. Gadgets such as security wearables, Wi-Fi encryption tools, home security cameras and even low-tech roller stamps could provide an extra layer of protection.       Security Wearables        Some contactless credit cards have a short-range wireless technology called radio-frequency identification (RFID) that lets customers pay for items simply by tapping a card against a reader. The same technology exists in U.S. passports and a variety of devices for automatically paying for highway tolls. Using a gadget called an RFID skimmer, a hacker could skim the information from an RFID-enabled credit card just by deftly passing over an unsuspecting person's purse or back pocket. An entire industry has exploded around personal security devices, such as bags, wallets and credit card sleeves that block RFID skimmers. These gadgets are generally not expensive and may give the buyer some extra peace of mind.       However, before purchasing such gear, note that the risk of someone stealing credit card information this way is low, according to NPR. Most credit cards issued in the U.S. are not contactless, but instead have computers chips that require the card be inserted into a machine and used in combination with a PIN. And although passports do use RFID technology, the U.S. Department of State said that "The RFID technology embedded in documents will not include any personally identifying information; only a unique number that can be associated with a record stored in a secure government database will be transmitted." In short, purchasing security wearables that block RFID skimmers may only be worth it for those who own contactless credit cards.       Biometric Authentication       As more smartphones and their corresponding apps incorporate fingerprint recognition to authenticate consumer transactions, businesses will begin to do the same. According to new research from Gartner, 70 percent of companies will rely on biometric authentication via a smartphone app to access sensitive information at work, reported Information Age. At least five different laptops already come with fingerprint readers embedded, according to a 2019 review from Best World. For laptops that lack biometrics, an actual lock and security cable might offer the best protection. The Baltimore Sun reviewed five of these locks in 2019, which range in price from about $15 to $75.       Home Security Cameras       Identity theft is not merely for computer hackers. Old-fashioned home break-ins can put personal information — including passports, birth certificates, bank statements and other financially sensitive records — at risk. A home security camera, particularly one connected to a phone app, can make criminals think twice. Systems from Ring and Nest, for instance, have built-in floodlights, night color vision and a siren; they also record video in high-def and are weather-proofed. Both can be controlled by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa and allow users to see, hear and speak to visitors through a mobile app.       Wi-Fi Data Encryption Tools       According to U.S. census data, 8 million people work from home, as reported by Quartz. For telecommuters, "working from home" may actually mean working from a hotel, café© or library and using public Wi-Fi. That makes them vulnerable to cybercriminals who can easily hack into public network connections that are not password-protected. Wi-Fi security encryption software, which is more of a tool than a device, lets internet users work securely anywhere. Programs such as Hotspot Shield, Wi-Fi Protector and Comodo, for instance, encrypt all information sent and received and keep visits to any website anonymous. Fees for such a service as are a low as $2.99 per month, depending on the contract.       ID Roller Stamp       There comes a day in everybody's life when it's time to throw out sensitive paperwork, like old bank statements, paid-off loans, ancient tax forms and other outdated financial information. Many people use paper shredders to destroy such documents and keep them out of the hands of dumpster diving thieves. But ID roller stamps work just as well — and perhaps better, since they blot out the sensitive information completely. The rollers contain black ink and are designed to cover wide swaths of print with an opaque pattern. Products from ExcelMark, Vantamo, Guard Your ID and Lionergy do the job well for between $10 and $20, according to Mashable.       Of course, some of the best ways to protect a person's identity online don't necessarily require personal security devices — just some common sense. A strong password, a password-protected phone, a healthy level of skepticism about offers that sound too good to be true and the ability to resist downloading tantalizing images or documents from unfamiliar email contacts can go a long way, reported PC Mag. The publication also recommends that consumers request a free credit report at least once per year and sign up for the free, ad-supported Credit Karma service, which keeps track of credit scores. These helpful tips, in addition to personal security devices that work best for your lifestyle, could keep data and identity secure.     

These 5 Personal Security Devices Thwart Identity Theft

  Autonomous vehicles are at the cutting edge of today's defense technology. Long familiar in the form of guided missiles — and, even earlier, the torpedo — autonomous war vehicles are now taking on a far wider variety of roles. In addition to functioning as weapons in their own right, as missiles and torpedoes do, autonomous military craft now also serve as platforms for launching other weapons, as well as providing reconnaissance. They do so not only in the air and at sea but also on land, where their roles include disarming or safely detonating IEDs (improvised explosive devices) such as roadside bombs. The growing capabilities of autonomous vehicles is being driven by new generations of computers and sensors that make these vehicles "smarter" than ever before. But all of their military missions, whether new or long established, share the common goal of protecting troops by advancing into dangerous, hostile environments ahead of them.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  It Came From Beneath the Sea We think of them as a new technology, but today's autonomous vehicles are products of a long evolution. Their ancestor, the self-propelled naval torpedo, first went to sea nearly 150 years ago. The autonomous capability of early torpedoes was limited to a pressure valve that controlled the depth at which the torpedo ran. Later, a gyroscope was added to help keep it on course. Even with very limited self-steering capabilities, torpedoes transformed war at sea, making even the most powerful and heavily armored battleships vulnerable to underwater attack. As Jimmy Stamp reports at Smithsonian, during World War I, the U.S. applied the same principle to "aerial torpedoes" — essentially biplane cruise missiles — though none were ready for use in the war. During World War II, Germany launched thousands of V1 and V2 missiles, and the U.S. also made some use of guided weapons in the closing months of the war. By the 1950s, guided missiles were widespread, and their guidance systems became increasingly sophisticated. But missiles only need to be smart enough to track a target and crash into it (or explode close enough to destroy it). More complex missions, such as requiring a pilotless aircraft to land safely for reuse, were beyond the capability of existing guidance technologies.   Driving on Other Planets Space exploration gave a key boost to autonomous vehicle technology, according to the Computer History Museum's blog. Space probes use guidance technology similar to that of missiles, but designers also began developing wheeled rovers to explore the surface of Mars. Due to radio transmission lag, these vehicles could not simply be driven by remote control — they needed some ability to make their own driving choices. Space technology, military requirements and the effort to develop robocars for highway use have all come together to produce the current — and still fast-evolving — generation of autonomous vehicles for military missions. But autonomous-vehicle capabilities are also still emerging from the sea. The Navy has become a key player in autonomous technology because of the enormous range of operating environments it must face. Not only must the Navy deal with airborne and underwater threats; amphibious and Marine operations may require the ability to come ashore onto dry land as well. The Navy's MQ-8C Fire Scout autonomous helicopter is typical of the emerging generation of autonomous vehicles performing naval missions. Already deployed from large naval ships, the Fire Scout can also operate from the relatively small LCS (Littoral Control Ship), designed for inshore waters, according to USNI. [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AaG2EDPVBqc" width="560" height="315" ] These smaller ships, more subject to the heave of the sea, make aircraft operations exceptionally challenging, while the coastal environment poses complex threats from aircraft to small boats to mines. The Fire Scout can be tailored with mission packages to support all of these roles while minimizing the need place sailors or Marines at risk in high-threat environments. Even closer inshore, reports the Office of Naval Research, the Navy and Marine Corps are testing autonomous amphibious vehicles capable of "hitting the beach" and moving inland to provide up-front support for Marines.  You can play a part in the next generation of autonomous vehicles at Northrop Grumman.

When Autonomous Vehicles Go to War

Hurtling asteroids are in the news again. According to CNET, 2006 QV89, a lump of rock half the size of a football field, has a slight chance (one in 7,000) of hitting Earth this fall. Meanwhile, KQED reports that a larger asteroid named Apophis will make a very close pass in 2029, coming closer than the television and telephone satellites that orbit the Earth. Planetary Defense: Not Just Science Fiction Luckily, the chances of Apophis slamming directly into us have been reduced from an earlier estimate of 2.7% to "practically nil." Even if Apophis misses us, there is a chance of an asteroid eventually hitting Earth. A really large asteroid could wipe us out, just as one wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago, says KQED. Even an asteroid a mere thousand feet across — about the size of Apophis, notes KQED — could hit Earth with 1,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, destroying any city in its path and devastating an entire region, says EarthSky.org. In the golden age of science fiction, planetary defense usually meant guarding Earth against malicious aliens or the occasional fleet of rebel space colonists. Now, according to NASA's planetary defense web pages, it means guarding Earth against boulders and mountains left over from the creation of the planets. Eyes on the Skies Foresight is essential in preventing an asteroid hitting Earth. Until recently, there was no systematic effort to track asteroids that pass near Earth. According to KQED, an Apophis-sized asteroid passed us closer than the moon in 2001 — but one knew it until 2017, when it was tracked, and analysis of its orbit revealed the earlier near miss. Now, as the NASA planetary defense FAQ reports, the detection and tracking elements of defense are coming together, making it likely that we will know of any collision threat years in advance. How to Shoot Down an Asteroid When we know an asteroid's path in advance, we can deflect it. The goal of deflection, says Space.com, is to "nudge" the asteroid into a slightly different orbit, so that it misses the Earth instead of slamming into us. A very slight nudge is sufficient if done early enough before the predicted impact. A velocity change of one meter per second adds up to roughly 20,000 miles in a year — five times Earth's radius, or the difference between impact and a clean miss. (Orbital dynamics can complicate this picture, but small changes in speed still add up over time.) So, how do you nudge an asteroid? Hitting it with a nuclear bomb is a Hollywood favorite, but it might break it apart if hit it too hard. Then you just have several smaller asteroids to contend with — one or more of which may still be on a collision course with Earth. For this reason, the favored technique is a kinetic impactor, a spacecraft that hits the asteroid hard enough to move it into a slightly different orbit, but not so hard as to break it into fragments. NASA is already in the planning stages of a mission to test the idea on an asteroid called Didymos B, due to pass conveniently (but not dangerously) close to Earth in 2022 and 2024. Alas, for Hollywood, a kinetic impactor requires neither a nuclear warhead nor astronauts, since the impactor will hit the asteroid at several miles per second. Planetary defense will, therefore, be strictly a robotic mission.

Asteroid Attack: Planetary Defense Gets Real

 Hacking has increasingly been making headlines over the last few years. At the same time, cybersecurity has been in the same story covering large-scale data breaches or website shutdowns. For most people, the threat of hacking involves the stealing of identity, fraud and banking. But, there's a more personal vulnerability that could develop with the emergence of precision medicine. Instead of stealing a password, cyberthieves could be snooping for your genetic information. Luckily the burgeoning field of genomic security is there to stop would-be criminals.Your Genes, Your Medicine Medicine has always been tailored to an individual's needs. Whether it's a prescription for an allergy medicine or contact lenses, medicine is personal. Precision medicine takes healthcare to the next level by customizing treatments based on your specific genetic information. All the genes in your body add up to a big book of you. In a specific chapter, there could be a story about your genes that lets your doctor know what type of medicine to administer. Precision medicine can be used in cancer treatments. Doctors can look for specific genetic mutations that they can then target with chemotherapy or radiation. This type of treatment would lead to fewer side effects, which means a better recovery process. All of this genetic information can be stored digitally, which opens up treatment to a global scale. You don't have to fly to a specialist in another state or country; instead they can pull up your genetic information to evaluate any treatment. However, there is a drawback to this approach. Your genetic information is now genetic data, which means it has to be stored on a server, or the cloud. It's protected in the same way as other sensitive information, but there are concerns that a data breach could result in a criminal knowing everything about you in the literal sense. Genomic Security Privacy is of the utmost importance when it comes to your DNA. Not only is this data personally revealing, it also identifies all the generations of your family from past to present to the future. Interestingly, the first step to protecting this highly sensitive information is space. Because your genomic identity can be stored in large files, the future of precision medicine requires more hard-drive space. Legacy facilities designed to securely store medical data and records will need to be upgraded to accommodate the more sensitive genetic information. Other hardware and network upgrades, capable of dealing with files as large as 500 GB, will also be needed. There are ways to create a framework of genomic security based on best practices developed in other areas of cybersecurity. A classification system that helps classify genetic information, thus making it harder for thieves to connect DNA with an individual, would be one layer of security. Encryption would also need to be a part of the genomic security equation. From the database to the transit stage and any device capable of transmitting or accessing genetic data would need to be encrypted. Secure coding, so that no sensitive information can be found within the source itself, will also be needed to safeguard genetic information. Better auditing, which creates a chain of custody and command, will also be useful to determine any vulnerabilities. Whereas data retention can be quantified in months, or a few years, genomic data needs to be held for decades or even a century if we're thinking about a family. Data centers need to be equipped to handle 50 years, or more, of data. That's a lot of storage and tracking, which means a different type of training is necessary. The best security methods in the world won't matter without a good notification system. Early threat detection can help minimize any breach. Most importantly, genomic security needs to be holistic in nature with a goal of securing data for a very long time.If you want to learn even more about genomic security, check out this white paper to get into the real nitty-gritty of it.

Precision Medicine and How to Protect Your Genetic Information

 Basic biometric securities are now commonplace — smartphone users expect the protection offered by fingerprint scans when they unlock their device, while higher-security access points have begun reliably using iris scanning to authenticate users and reduce the risk of compromise. But this is just the beginning; the human body has a host of unique biological identifiers that could both enhance security and reduce personal access inconvenience. Here's a look at the new frontiers of personal cybersecurity utilizing biometrics.  Facial Recognition  This type of biometric solution is gaining ground thanks in part to reports that Apple's next iPhone will use 3-D cameras to capture user facial features, allowing both device access and purchasing permissions. As noted by The Independent, trials of facial recognition software are currently underway in the Brisbane airport — travelers simply "enroll" their passport, boarding card and an image of their face during the check-in process and need only look into a specialized camera to pass through security. Facial recognition is built on a simple premise: by combining the unique profile of an individual face with highly accurate cameras, both security and convenience are enhanced.  Walk Tall  Another area of biometric development is walking pattern or "gait" identification, which uses cameras to capture the unique movements of different people. It makes sense; everyone has their own particular way of getting from place to place, and with the right camera technology, it's entirely possible to identify these patterns. According to New Scientist, in fact, researchers from the Technical University in Germany have already developed a more advanced version of the technique that can use additional information — such as the shadows on clothing — to produce more accurate results.  Talk the Talk  No surprise that Google biometrics make this list. Engadget reports that the tech giant's Alphabet spinoff is working on a project called "Abacus," which would allow devices to be unlocked with a continually updated "trust score" based on user location, speech patterns, vocal recognition and typing habits. It's a catch-all cybersecurity defense mechanism, but already questions have been raised about how data will be collected and used and how trust scores could be impacted if, for example, users are injured or experience some kind of major life event that changes usual habits.  Can't Beat 'Em  Then there's work by MasterCard and Canadian biometrics company Nymi, which is developing a wristband that authenticates users by referencing data related to their heartbeat. Using near-field communication technology, the wristband allows users to make MasterCard purchases at any Tap and Go enabled terminal by first authenticating their heartbeat data — according to VentureBeat, they've already completed a successful test in the wild.  To The Future!  And there's more where that came from. Companies have already developed military-grade biometric systems capable of capturing fingerprint and IRIS data on the move and checking this data against U.S Immigration and Customs databases and the U.K.'s law enforcement biometric protocol, IDENT1. Next steps include the commercialization of DNA-based techniques, which offer maximum reliability and security. As noted by CIO, these techniques are the "holy grail" of biometric security but since they require organic samples such as hair, nails, bodily fluids or cheek swabs, there's work to be done in accelerating and streamlining these processes before they become widely available.  Critical Concerns?  No discussion of biometric techniques is complete without mentioning long-term security. As noted by BetaNews, hackers have already managed to crack fingerprint scanners; Jan Krissler circumvented Touch ID the day after it was released. There's also the problem of ongoing compromise. While losing a password is inconvenient, users can reclaim accounts and change login details after this kind of breach. But what happens if hackers manage to duplicate unique data such as user gait, facial features or heartbeat signatures? How can hacked users reclaim their identity when security protocols say they're not who they claim to be?  Despite valid concerns, biometrics remains a red-hot development field as companies look for ways to increase security, improve convenience and fundamentally alter the way human beings interact with technology.

Biometrics: From Fingerprints to New Frontiers

A DDoS attack — which stands for "distributed denial of service" — is a type of cyberattack that hijacks innocent users' computers in order to attack a website and render it temporarily inaccessible or inoperable.  In such an attack, the targeted website is flooded with fake user requests, so many of them that they cannot handle the traffic. The site may be knocked offline entirely by the overflow traffic, or its response to legitimate requests may simply slow to such a crawl that the website becomes unusable by its intended users.  And because DDoS attacks operate by hijacking innocent machines, they are exceptionally difficult for security experts to trace back to their originator, meaning that the targeted website usually cannot determine the attacker's identity.  Botnets on the March  But the most distinctive feature of DDoS attacks is that they victimize not only the targeted website (and its users, who suffer the actual denial of service) but also the owners of other computers and internet devices — up to hundreds of thousands of them — whose machines are taken over in order to send the fake requests that cripple the targeted website.  Not all denial of service attacks are "distributed"; such attacks can also be launched using a single machine to send the fake service requests. But as Kim Zetter notes at Wired, such single-origin attacks have been largely supplanted by DDoS attacks.  The computers hijacked for a DDoS attack are "recruited" by being infected with a computer virus that places the infected computer under control of the attacker. A computer thus infected is called a bot (short for robot) or zombie. A network of bots used in an attack is a botnet.  The owners and users of these infected computers are generally unaware that their computers are infected, or being used in an attack. They may notice sluggish performance when their computer is being used in a botnet, but without knowing the cause.  While the computers used in a botnet are infected, the website targeted by a DDoS attack is not itself directly infected by the attack, and its data is not being stolen — it is simply flooded with spurious service calls. However, the disruption caused by DDoS may also be used to attempt other attacks on the targeted website.  Motives for DDoS attacks can vary from straightforward money extortion ("pay up, or we'll keep knocking you offline") to political motivations. The latter involve both so-called hacktivists and state intelligence agencies. One of the most notable DDoS attacks to date was launched in 2007 against Estonian websites by actors associated with Russia.   DDOS Hits Warp Speed  More recently a new type of DDOS attack has come to the fore. ZDNet reports that attackers have learned how to hack into servers running a software application called Memcached, which is designed to speed up web page loading. Servers running Memcached should never be exposed the public Internet — but many website operators fail to provide this protection, allowing DDOS attackers to hijack the servers and put Memcached to work for them.  In 2018, reports Wired, the developer website GitHub was subjected to the most massive DDOS attack yet recorded, when request traffic suddenly jumped to 1.7 terabits per second — roughly comparable to a million users all trying to access the same website at the same time.  The good news is that GitHub recovered within minutes. But most websites are not as well-prepared to handle such an attack.    Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Enter the Internet of Things  In and of themselves, DDoS attacks are not the most damaging form of cyberattack, since the target website is only temporarily disabled, and — unless another type of attack is also involved — its data is not compromised. The machines used in the botnet are compromised, but the attackers are often interested only in using the bots to send fake service requests, not stealing data from them.  But as Margaret Rouse reports at SearchSecurity, the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) is raising the stakes for DDoS attacks. The things in the Internet of Things are internet-connected gadgets of all sorts, from exercisers' activity tracking wristbands to industrial controllers. Few of these IoT devices have been designed for security — meaning that they are all too vulnerable to hackers who want to take them over and use them in DDoS attack botnets.  The challenge of protecting IoT devices against being hijacked by DDoS attackers underlines just one facet of a transformation now overtaking the computing and technology world.  Because of the Internet of Things, "tech" in the sense of computers and information technology is no longer separate from the broader domain of technology. Every sophisticated machine is now likely to also be an internet device, with all the implications for security as well as capabilities.  At Northrop Grumman, you can work with some of the world's most sophisticated connected devices, up to and including automated technology. And security in all its forms is the heart of the business. 

Service Denied! The DDoS Attack Threat

There are an estimated 110 million landmines in the ground. Originally planted as weapons and concentrated in many of the world's most war-torn nations, landmines more often cause injuries or death among civilians, especially women and children, than to soldiers. About 26,000 people a year, or 70 per day, are killed by landmines. Engineers and designers have been developing unmanned systems to efficiently neutralize landmines to prevent life-threatening injuries.Slow and Dangerous WorkIn the past, people looking to clear landmines have relied on metal detectors or animals like dogs or rats to detect landmines. But physically clearing them usually involves trying to disarm them or, more often, safely detonating them. It's slow and dangerous work — an average of two people are injured, and one killed, for every 5,000 landmines cleared, according to the United Nations.Since the 1990s, militaries seeking to move across minefields have relied upon heavy, tank-like devices to clear landmines. These are among the most popular techniques even for humanitarian purposes because they are hardy, can work quickly, and can withstand the blast. But these devices have a big limitation: they require a driver.Unmanned SystemsMore recently, some companies have moved towards unmanned systems operated by remote control. Many of them are equipped with metal detectors or other techniques to identify mines, and various attachments at the front (flail arm, tiller) to detonate the mines once they're found.The D-3, created by the Swiss nonprofit Digger Foundation, has the rototiller front and armored body of other vehicles and can be remotely operated from more than 1,000 feet away. Previous iterations of the D-3 have cleared mines in North and South Sudan. Another, the Prime Tech PT-300 D:Mine is slightly smaller but can be remotely operated from nearly two miles away. It has been used in 10 countries, including Colombia, where a brutal civil war left more than 11,000 people killed or injured by landmines. The tractor-like LOCOSTRA is small and agile, making it less expensive than similar models. It can be operated from a maximum of 650 feet away. It's been tested in Jordan, where most landmines had been planted during Arab—Israeli conflicts in 1948 and 1967. The Bozena looks more like a lawnmower than a demining machine. It moves on wheels (unlike other models that use tracks, as tanks do) and can be operated from three miles away. More than 80 units are being used in two dozen countries all over the world, by military and humanitarian efforts alike.In October 2016, Northrop Grumman successfully demonstrated the unmanned AQS-24B mine hunting system in Scotland, furthering its role in unmanned minesweeping technologies in the air, on the surface, and underground.Future TechniquesIn the future, landmines may be removed by completely autonomous devices. Afghan-born designer Massoud Hassani has come up with a drone-based mine-clearing device. It contains GPS to map the mines at a distance, keeping the device itself intact. The project isn't yet in the field (although it received more than double its goal funding on Kickstarter) but it would presumably be used in Hassani's native Afghanistan and beyond.Some engineers are looking at radar that can penetrate into the ground and deactivate mines so that they can safely be dug up and destroyed. Others are turning their attention to autonomously neutralizing water-based mines, which can explode due to the vibrations of a nearby ship, regardless of it being a military or civilian vehicle. The U.S. and Israeli militaries have been working on autonomous or remote-controlled boats for several years.New, innovative techniques to autonomously clear mines could mean a safer future for thousands of operators and civilians alike. For residents of the world's most war-torn nations, peace may finally be peaceful after all.Want to innovate new ways to detect and clear landmines? Consider a career with Northrop Grumman.

Lifesaver: Unmanned Systems Removal of Land Mines

 The art of cybersecurity — protecting people and their devices from hackers and other computer-based attackers — has undergone a dramatic but largely invisible transformation over the last few years. At one time, computer and information security was based on the fortress principle. The outlook was defensive. The goal was to wall off attackers, and guard the drawbridge that allowed access to the outside world.    But the breakneck pace of technology has made the old-style cyber-fortress as obsolete as a medieval castle. Attackers can slip into today's online networks through hundreds of smartphones and other mobile devices, or parachute down from "the cloud." At the same time, the amateur hackers of old have given way to sophisticated organized-crime rings. Taking the Fight to the Enemy  But this new era of cyberthreats has also inspired a new generation of cyber-professionals to come up from the bunkers and engage cybercriminals and other bad actors on multiple fronts.  At CIOInsight, Karen A. Frenkel sketches out how new technologies, along with these more aggressive approaches, are changing the shape of cybersecurity. Key weapons in the new arsenal of active defense are "big data" analytics and artificial intelligence.  In the tech world, big data is not just a reference to the sheer volume of data. It is also a shorthand term for new kinds of data, from complex software output to social media messages. This type of data is also sometimes called "unstructured" data, to distinguish it from traditional types of business data such as lists of credit card accounts.  By detecting subtle patterns in unstructured data, active defenders can pinpoint malware attacks and take action to bring down the attackers. But because the patterns are subtle — and because big data really is big — cybersecurity teams are also enlisting artificial intelligence (AI) technology to hunt through terabytes of data in search of tiny cues that an attack may be underway. AI observers never get tired or distracted, so attackers cannot sneak past them. The Dark Web: A Walk Through the Online Mean Streets  Along with AI, human intelligence is also on the case against cybercriminals in the form of cyberdetectives working the mean streets of the internet. These hard-boiled investigators keep their eyes on the so-called dark web marketplaces where cybercriminals trade their tools and their stolen goods.  As Ryan Francis reports at Infoworld, the criminal markets of the dark web have developed their own street language of computer crime. Like traditional gangland argot, some of it borrows from the professional language of cops. To security professionals, FUD stands for the fear, uncertainty and doubt that attackers seek to spread, but on the dark web FUD means fully undetectable.  Other terms from the cyber underworld include "crypters" that encrypt malware in order to help it evade detection, while "binders" attach malware to innocent programs to sneak it past security. And because the cyber underworld is full of crooks, "rippers" are people who promise valuable malware or stolen data, but don't deliver on it.  The dark web also features its own online stores and discussion forums for hackers, including online stores for criminal purchases. Some of these underworld websites are high-end marketplaces that hackers can only enter by invitation. Others are low-end flea markets of cybercrime, where rippers prey on unwary would-be hackers.  But even the sophisticated crooks who shop at the high-end boutiques of cybercrime need to be careful, because cybersecurity professionals are finding new ways to keep an eye on them. One slip can land a hacker in an old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar jail cell.  And even as today's cybersecurity teams take the fight to the bad guys, a new generation of tomorrow's professionals are coming up. Many are learning their chops through the Air Force Association's CyberPatriots program, which lets high-school and even middle-school students gain hands-on experience at the cutting edge of cybersecurity technique and technology. Cybercop hopefuls can also ply their talents as part of the team at Northrop Grumman. Check out the careers page for more details.

Cybersecurity: Patrolling the Online Mean Streets

The role of the space program in creating earthly "space spinoff" products, including grocery items, is a matter of legend. (It is also true.) Less well-known — but with even greater impact on your kitchen shelves and countertop — is the role of military technology in the development of the modern kitchen. Some of these defense innovations found their way into your kitchen by accident. Others — most of them, in fact — are no accident at all, but arose out of efforts to keep soldiers (along with sailors, airmen and marines) well-fed and healthy. Napoleon Bonaparte once said: "An army marches on its stomach." Over the ages, for every battle won by better weapons or tactics, a dozen have been won by soldiers who went into battle healthy and well-fed, facing enemies who were half-starved, scattered to forage for food or who deserted outright in search of something to eat. Just Open a Can Napoleon himself contributed to one of the first and most familiar kitchen innovations of the dawning industrial era: canned foods. Until his day, the list of foods that would keep well without spoiling was very limited. Heavily salted meat and "hardtack" biscuit were the staple foods of soldiers and seamen. Seeking better rations for his troops, Napoleon offered a prize for a way to keep food fresh. And, writes Nicola Twilley of Popular Science, the competition gave a key boost to the new spoilage-preventing technology of canning. We've been stealing a bite or two straight from the can ever since. "Nuke It" in the Microwave Technology Companies like Northrop Grumman provide extensive capabilities in microwave technology essential to many sensors, communication systems and even directed energy weapons. But microwaves can also do a great job heating up a three-day old burrito. A World War II military innovation, radar, gets the credit for enabling you to "nuke" food quickly. And unlike canned foods, this piece of kitchen technology was a sheer accident. As Evan Ackerman recounts at IEEE Spectrum, the accident happened just after the war in 1946. A researcher was working with a magnetron, the device that generates the microwaves used by radar sets. He had a candy bar in his pocket, and in the middle of his work, he felt something warm and soft. Microwave energy had melted the candy bar. Further development led to the microwave oven, but its origins in military research explains why people still sometimes call the kitchen microwave a radar oven. From McRibs to Power Bars Radar tech may have reached the kitchen by accident, but World War II was when military kitchen technology research really took off. As with Napoleon, the goal was to provide service members with a wider variety of food that kept well and could be prepared easily. These research efforts, now centered at the Combat Feeding Directorate of the Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center (NSRDEC) in Massachusetts, began as early as the 1920s at the Quartermaster Subsistence School, then in the 1930s at the Chicago Quartermaster Depot. With the coming of war, universities and industry were enlisted in the effort which, according to Popular Science, gave us everything from the "prefabricated module of meat" — it sounds tastier as a McRib — to pressure-sealed packages of fruit juice, and much more. Even the exercise enthusiast's power bar, which many think of as thoroughly contemporary, goes back to World War II, when their precursors were designed as emergency rations for the battlefield. And if you don't really like them very much, blame the Pentagon. The original specification said that they should not taste too good so that GIs would save them until needed instead of munching them down first chance they got. Military Research in the Deli Section The battlefield has changed since World War II, not to mention Napoleon. But one thing that has not changed is the critical importance of wholesome food to troops' health, energy and morale. Outdoor Life testifies that the military's MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) — now also a staple for wilderness hikers — actually tastes pretty good, even if servicemembers won't admit it. (Griping about the chow is a soldier's timeless right!) And new military research creations continue to flow into our kitchens. As Nadia Whitehead recounts at NPR, one of the NSRDEC's more recent innovations, dating to the 2000s, is high pressure processing (HPP). If your deli meat has no preservatives, it was probably made using HPP. Military technology innovations that help keep that pilot healthy and alert could well end up doing the same for you and your family in the kitchen. 

Military Technology Gave You Microwave Popcorn

Blockchain technology, the online ledger used to track bitcoin transactions, has proven to be useful for the business world. Unfortunately, criminals, extremist organizations and hostile foreign powers could also employ it for their uses. Blockchain's nefarious potential has prompted the U.S. Senate to call for a Department of Defense study to look at how the technology might be used to hurt or help U.S. security, according to The Washington Times. While there are few instances so far of criminal and terrorist use of blockchain, the potential is real. However, the means of countering blockchain that the DoD is likely to study are still being worked out. That means there's a race between weaponizing blockchain and finding effective countermeasures. How the Bad Guys Could Use Blockchain   Blockchain is an online ledger that is seemingly impossible to tamper with. As ZDNet explained, the idea behind the technology is to broadcast every transaction to the community. When a majority of that community agrees that all transactions seen in the recent past are unique, those transactions are cryptographically sealed into a block. "A chain thereby grows, each new block linked to the previously accepted history, preserving every spend ever made," ZDNet said. The transaction is hard or impossible to influence because rather than being stored on a single server, blockchain is distributed across the world via a network of private computers. As Marc Andreessen, co-partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in The New York Times, bitcoin and blockchain "gives us, for the first time, a way for one Internet user to transfer a unique piece of digital property to another Internet user, such that the transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate." That includes the potential negative consequences. As Interpol's Christian Karam told attendees at the Black Hat Asia conference, blockchain could also be used to provide access to illicit content or malware control mechanisms that, once posted, would be hard to remove, according to Forbes. Thankfully, the real-life examples of such blockchain abuse have been few. Last year, someone uploaded the decades-old Stoned virus to blockchain, security blogger Graham Cluley explained. But that instance appears to have been harmless. To demonstrate the security dangers of blockchain, researchers at the United Kingdom's University of Newcastle also created ZombieCoin, a botnet command and control mechanism that can send commands to malware on bitcoin's network. Saving Blockchain from Itself  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. One saving grace of blockchain is that every transaction is recorded. Even if criminals shield their identity, they leave a digital trail that's often of use to investigators. Chainanalysis, a firm that tracks such data, has worked with the FBI, the IRS and the SEC, among other government entities in the U.S. and Europe, for this purpose, MIT Technology Review noted. One lingering concern is the emergence of quantum computing — a technology that uses qubits instead of bits to perform unfathomably complex transactions. A hacker using quantum computing could hack blockchain, but engineers are working on countermeasures, according to the International Business Times. Blockchain technology is so new — it has only been around for about a decade — that hackers and security pros are still working out ways to exploit and preserve the system, respectively. The proposed DoD study shows that blockchain is far enough along to be a powerful tool and a potentially powerful weapon.

Blockchain Technology's Dark Side Worries the Department of Defense

In science fiction they go by a variety of names — shields, screens and deflectors being among the most popular — while the expression "force field" is more often used to describe the underlying principle, rather than specific defensive installations protecting spaceships, cities or entire planets in a science fiction story. As science writer Ella Alderson at Medium notes, force field defenses are so well established in science fiction that authors and scriptwriters hardly need to explain them. Readers and viewers are so up to speed on what they are that it's generally enough for the captain in the scene to order "Full deflectors!" or the chief engineer to warn, "The screens canna take much more!" This is good news for the creative community, because unlike many science fiction technologies, force field defenses have not yet made their debut in the real world, and the science around them is uncertain enough that an explanation would be tough to write, even in fiction. But are they possible off the screen and page? Fields All Around Us On the level of pure science, the answer is a resounding Yes. Not only are they possible, but they are actually all around us. If you go out and buy one of those little horseshoe magnets, you can have your own force field generator that will lift up a steel needle, overcoming another force field, Earth's gravity. Alas, what it won't do is stop a phaser beam, or even an old-fashioned bullet. The four basic forces that govern our universe — gravity, electromagnetism, and "strong" and "weak" nuclear forces — are all associated with fields that could certainly be called force fields, and some of these can provide protective shielding. Earth's magnetic field protects us all (including all present-day astronauts) from dangerous high-energy solar and cosmic particle radiation. Indeed, as USRA reports, NASA has seriously examined electromagnetic shielding for prolonged deep space missions as an alternative to massive physical shielding. Unfortunately, at our current state of technology, the required field generator would be even heavier than the shielding it would replace, so a lot of development work has to be done before force field protection against deep space radiation becomes viable. On the bright side, a lot of development work means exactly that: work to be done, which is quite different from impossible. How To Stop a Shockwave There are ongoing projects aimed at bringing us closer to classic science fiction-style force field defenses. One defense contractor has even patented a technology to protect vehicles from destructive shockwaves produced by explosions. A combination of electric arcs and lasers would be used to flash a wall of air into plasma — atoms so superheated that nuclei and electrons go their separate ways, making the plasma controllable by magnetic fields. Such plasma can deflect and therefore effectively absorb an oncoming shockwave, protecting the vehicle. One limitation is that while plasma readily deflects shockwaves, physical objects (such as shells or missiles) can pass through the plasma wall unimpeded, so other defenses would be required against these threats. As an additional caution, Mic.com notes that technology companies patent many ideas to protect their intellectual property, but not all of them end up being developed. Meanwhile, at TheDrive.com, Brett Tingley describes yet another ongoing project by the Air Force that uses ultra-high-power lasers to produce a force field capable of destroying or disabling incoming warheads or other weapons. The article notes that existing (experimental) laser defenses can actually knock out drones in tests by enveloping them in brief, localized force fields. According to Jeremy Murray-Krezan of the Air Force Research Laboratory, directed energy (DE) "is uniquely suited for an area of growing importance, nondestructive but damaging, disruptive, and denial of operations." Modern combat, it seems, is already a more complex environment than what we typically see in science fiction. Are Force Fields Possible? We are still a long way from the force field defenses that are popular in science fiction — protection that functions like the armor on a World War era battleship, stopping incoming attacks without needing to be aimed at specific threats. Our current understanding of physics suggests that such preclusive defense against modern weapons would be difficult to achieve without dramatic technological advances that we cannot yet confidently foresee. Still, active research is opening new possibilities for defenses and protection, suggesting that if force fields do become part of our defensive arsenal, they may take a different form from the shields and screens made popular in science fiction. Are you interested in science and innovation? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Force Fields — Searching for the Ultimate Defense

What is User Experience User Experience (UX) is a holistic user-centered development process used to create more robust and capable complex systems by focusing on user needs. It is rooted in Human Factors Engineering and Ergonomics, but has shifted to include fields like Information Architecture, Human Factors, and Human-Computer Interaction, to name a few. The Journey to UX User experience has proven itself in a commercial environment to speed processes, increase capability and make tasks easier to accomplish, but it has only recently been seen in government processes. The initial launch of Healthcare.gov in October of 2013 brought user experience in this domain to the public's attention. Two hours after its launch, the site crashed. Thousands of Americans experienced the frustration of using a website that didn't yet have the capabilities they needed. A task force of commercial tech industry veterans was assembled to fix the critical issues with the site. It was up and running by December. Their success led to the creation of the U.S. Digital Service, a consultant to federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure the success of their digital services.  To cultivate change, they created the Digital Service Playbook. The first three plays correlate directly with UX principles: "1. Understand what people need.  2. Address the whole experience, from start to finish  3. Make it simple and intuitive"  This playbook is being implemented across the entire government because the U.S Digital Service's goals are backed by the Executive Office of the President of the United States.  Perhaps one of the most important government departments to implement these changes is the U.S. Department of Defense. The Defense Digital Service was created in 2015 as an agency team of the larger U.S. Digital Service to transform this critical department without jeopardizing national security. Sounds simple right? However, the result has been overwhelming success. Projects like Hack the Pentagon have increased cyber security and partnerships with branches of the armed forces have increased the usability of software tools and systems for military personnel. And really, when you're making life and death decisions, wouldn't you want the best information and the best tools? Where We're Headed The effort to streamline software development and implement process change has led to changes in the way government departments interact with their contractors and vendors. In the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2019 fiscal year, the same requirements implemented by the U.S. Digital Service for government agencies have also became requirements for defense contractors. Many contractors operate in both commercial and government sectors and have seen the same benefits from those processes even on their government contracts. As Chief Technologist for Human-Machine Teaming at Northrop Grumman, Neta Ezer said, "User Experience is a key technology capability area for Northrop Grumman, helping the company to keep pace with the growing desire by the Government to have technology that improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the user to complete the mission."  One such program is the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), a contract held by Northrop Grumman. User-centered design practices have been a part of the IBCS effort since the contract's original award in 2008. UX practitioners working on the program regularly meet with end users to determine their needs and address them with system capabilities. User testing allows the team to validate their designs. Fostering relationships with users has empowered them to bring issues or needs to the attention of development teams so they can be addressed before the system is fielded. The result is a more robust system that users already know and trust. The success of UX on programs like IBCS has led to the creation of internal programs that cultivate user-centered design and development practices at Northrop Grumman to ensure the operational success of their products.  "Northrop [Grumman] has incorporated User Experience as a standard practice as part of our 'Engineering Playbook', offering a UX Academy for internal training and development, " says Sandy Forney, Director of the Engineering Center of Excellence at Northrop Grumman.  Progress is just beginning. The future holds big changes for the defense industry.

UX: Transforming Defense

    A stealth aircraft that was built in secrecy during the 1980s sounds thrilling, but it's actually a strange-looking relic that represents a major milestone in surveillance aircraft technology. Tacit Blue — nicknamed "the whale" for its unusual shape — was an experimental prototype that demonstrated that aircraft could spy on enemy operations without being detected by radar. During its three-year secret operation, Tacit Blue helped engineers develop low-observable, aka stealth, characteristics that are still critical in today's military aircraft. Undercover in the '80s Much like many great inventions, Tacit Blue wasn't immediately successful. The aircraft was developed as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Battlefield Surveillance Aircraft Experiment (BSAX) in the 1970s. DARPA asked Northrop to continue the project in order to create an aircraft that could observe enemies from above without being detected. In order to peer through the clouds to see what was happening on the ground, an advanced radar was required.    Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Instead of adding radar equipment to an existing jet, a new aircraft was built around a large radar system that was revolutionary for its time because it could point its beam in different directions without needing to physically move. The resulting design was a rectangular aircraft with slightly rounded edges and thin wings. Prior to Tacit Blue, stealth aircraft typically featured faceted surfaces, which were good at minimizing radar detection, but bad at flying aerodynamically. The "whale" proved that slightly curved edges were both stealthier and more aerodynamic than flatter designs. This revelation influenced the designs of surveillance aircraft and bombers for decades. The Descendants During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS, was first deployed. It uses the sensor systems that were originally developed for Tacit Blue, which allow it to determine the direction, speed and patterns of military activity of ground vehicles and helicopters. A manned bomber called the B-2 Spirit also grew from Tacit Blue's low-observable yet aerodynamic features. The B-2 uses a combination of reduced infrared, acoustic, electromagnetic, visual and radar signatures, plus composite materials, special coatings and a unique wing design. This stealth design enables the bomber to penetrate enemy areas while flying at high altitudes, which provide a bird's-eye view with minimal chance of being caught. Global Hawk is an unmanned aircraft system designed to fly at high altitudes in order to provide near-real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. While it has been through several iterations since it debuted in 1998, the Block 30 Global Hawk carries sophisticated imaging and electronic signals sensors for situational awareness and intelligence-gathering over large geographic areas.      [skyword_iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MtRY2VFyIyg" width="560" height="315" ] It is like a flying robotic super computer. Global Hawk is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar/moving target indicator (SAR/MTI), a high-resolution electro-optical digital camera and a third-generation infrared (IR) sensor. All of the data collected is transmitted through high bandwidth satellite communication links to ground stations for processing and exploitation. It has been used by the U.S. Air Force for military operations, but Global Hawk was also used for humanitarian efforts for disaster relief in Haiti and Japan, as well as by NASA for observing weather and climate patterns. Tacit Blue operated in secrecy from 1982 to 1985 and was eventually revealed to the public in 1996. It is now on display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio (but you can also take a virtual cockpit tour from home). Looking to be a part of the next revolutionary aircraft to hit the skies? Join Northrop Grumman and ply your trade there.

Surveillance Aircraft Are Inspired by This Secret Experimental Prototype

Cyber is an increasingly risky space. With more and more companies and institutions relying heavily on online operations, the need for enhanced cybersecurity has never been greater. The more people who connect their organization's phones and laptops to home networks, the bigger the risk it is for the organization's networked systems. Such vulnerabilities allow opportunity for cyber threat actors to operate undetected inside a network for long periods of time. The recent SolarWinds cyber-attack is a prime example that most organizations are not prepared for such a large-scale cyber intrusion. Traditional cybersecurity is focused on countering cyber threats to enterprise IT networks, like hacking into email servers. Over the past few years, efforts to secure critical Operational Technology (OT) systems have become more prominent. Built on the baseline idea of cybersecurity — the ability to preserve a network's confidentiality, integrity and availability in the face of cyber risks — two additional lines of cyber defense have emerged: Cyber Resilience and Cyber Survivability. This is especially important when it comes to military defense. Enhanced Cybersecurity As challenging as cyber threats are to most people, imagine an advanced cyber-attack against a fighter pilot during a mission. Once a system is breached, the jet's cyber defenses need to withstand the attack long enough for the warfighter to complete their assignment and return home safely. As antagonists are constantly evolving their cyber-attack methods, it's imperative for defense networks to have the ability to prevent, mitigate and recover from serious cyber events all while performing the assigned tactical mission. An aircraft's platforms must be cyber survivable to be able to successfully operate in the face of adversaries. "Cyber Resilience evolved beyond the Risk Management Framework (RMF) — largely procedural and compliance activities — into an idea that we want to design key system attributes into a weapon or mission system that enable that system to continue to function in the face of unplanned disruption," said Northrop Grumman Cyber and Information Solutions Director of Business Development, Dean "Data" Clothier. "As a specialty within System Security Engineering (SSE), Cyber Resilience is all about engineering design and the kind of system attributes that you want." Clothier went on to provide example questions that one may ask regarding the system attributes needed to fight through a cyber-attack: Does a mission system continue to operate when facing a range of potential sources of disruption, ranging from extreme weather events, to critical component failure, to operator error, to sophisticated malicious cyber activity? Once this cyber systems security engineering design is complete, then it naturally flows into the technology element of the NIST Risk Management Framework cybersecurity control selection. Clothier further explained that cyber resiliency ensures that a system, or the infrastructure on which it depends, is designed to "anticipate, withstand, recover and adapt" to disruptions and continue to function effectively, especially those caused by cyber-attack. In today's cyber battlespace, it's not only vital for weapon systems to be resilient, but to be survivable as well. "Cyber Survivability came from a different community — the joint warfighter who has systems survivability requirements that a weapon system, to be an effective defense warfighting platform, has to be designed to be survivable in its planned operational environment," Clothier said. "If you're the United States European Command, you want to be able to have weapon systems that can operate in the face of Russian weapon systems. If you're United States Pacific Command, you're worried about North Korean or Chinese-specific threats." Understanding what nation state cyber threat actors are capable of doing is key to the "threat-driven design" approach needed to counter the highest tier of actor the systems have to operate against, explained Clothier. The U.S. government states the performance requirement and it's up to the system designers to figure how best to do that. Today, the cyber requirements on a U.S Department of Defense (DoD) weapon/mission system are likely to include elements from all three areas: Cybersecurity RMF, Cyber Resilience/SSE and Cyber Survivability. It is important to interpret these requirements from their individual frameworks, and then identify the complementary inter-relationships between all three. Preserving Critical Functionality to Complete the Mission A program is only cyber survivable if it understands the highest adversary threat tier that the DoD states it needs to be designed against for which to operate. This requires a threat profile that details the capabilities and threat chain of the most capable actor of the required threat tier. Once this is determined, the threat driven design of a system begins with an analysis of the overall threat chain that examines how the actor would seek to breach and disrupt that system. This threat chain is then aligned against the three pillars of Cyber Survivability: Prevent, Mitigate and Recover from cyber-attacks. "First, the 'Prevent' pillar focuses on a range of technology approaches that can keep nation state actors from breaching the system and establishing root level access inside our system," Clothier said. "Second, we have to assume that sooner or later they will breach it — that's explicitly a requirement from the DOD — so that leads to the 'Mitigate' pillar. This pillar aims to keep the system operating at its required level of performance to complete the mission." Warfighters can't disconnect from the mission and go home—the cyber survivability performance mandates that they can complete the mission even if breached. "Once the mission is over, we must have systems that rapidly restore to full functionality within a specified time — that's the 'Recover' pillar," he continued. "If you can then take the cyber threat profile, design and test against it, then you know it's a cyber survivable system." Cyber survivable systems need to be built to maintain effectiveness against a certain threat level across its entire lifecycle. "That necessitates that you not only think of the architecture and cyber solutions when you build a system, but design it in a way that it's rapidly reprogrammable and has a strong modular design to facilitate regular upgrades for the entirety of a weapon system's lifespan, which often reaches 30 years," Clothier said. Outdated weapon systems can be used for decades, but the cyber threat changes incredibly fast. The system's ability to be reprogrammable and make quick upgrades is essential to cyber survivability. Flexibility is Key Any digitally-connected device needs to be modular and quickly reprogrammable in order to make cyber updates for a secured network. For instance, smart TVs are equipped with video and audio recording capabilities that can pose a risk to people's privacy when hacked, yet they lack security software that detect virus signatures, much less so than more advanced cybersecurity technologies. The ability to upgrade a system's security software is fundamental. "Cyber exploits are driven by vulnerabilities, and these vulnerabilities are driven by new technology releases that are driven by new product release cycles," Clothier explained. The more niche the hardware, the less likely it will have reprogrammable systems. As adversaries continue to advance and evolve their cyber warfare capabilities, it's especially important for our military weapons systems to be cyber survivable against these nation state threats. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.  

A Cyber Future that is Not Only Secure but Survivable

Advances in stealth technology uncloak career opportunities for engineers... and other creative problem solvers.   For the past 40 years, this technology and related tactics have been a critical part of modern air warfare. They have allowed low observability (LO) aircraft to penetrate enemy territory undetected and conduct their missions successfully.   According to a recently published report by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute, stealth technology will remain central to aircraft survivability in combat threat environments for the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, U.S. adversaries remain as determined to detect our stealth platforms as we are to elude detection. To wit, enemy development of (1) more sensitive, longer range radars; (2) advanced digital signal processing (that speeds communications between ground radar systems and surface-to-air (SAM) sites or airborne interceptors; (3) more lethal, more mobile SAMS; (4) more advanced fighters carrying more advanced radar and longer range missiles; and (5) advances in command and control networking processes, are potentially putting U.S. stealth aircraft, their pilots and their missions at risk.   Against this backdrop, opportunities for engineers — and other types of creative problem solvers — to participate in this perennial game of stealth "cat and mouse" remain stronger than ever. Especially if they love solving hard problems — and not giving up.    Historically, stealth technology — the science of minimizing a stealth aircraft's radar cross section and its electromagnetic signature — has been the domain of engineers well trained in aircraft design and electromagnetic theory. But in today's stealth-focused labs, you'll find people trained in a broader, more diverse set of disciplines — from electrical, mechanical and aeronautical engineering to materials and data sciences.   "The most successful survivability engineers we've hired in recent years have had degrees in multiple disciplines," explains Elizabeth San Miguel, assistant manager of technology development for system survivability, Northrop Grumman. "Being able to understand multiple disciplines and how they affect each other in this context is an extremely valuable skill."   But a good education is just the beginning. "We're looking for people who are curious and innovative, people who like to solve problems, and who are smart enough — and observant enough — to recognize unexpected results," says John Ireland, director of survivability technology application, Northrop Grumman. Breakthroughs often occur, he adds, when engineers "stumble upon" an unanticipated result, but won't let go of it until they completely understand it.   Today's game of stealth is relentless and evolving, and playing out in multiple domains — air, ground, and space. Survivable platforms often operate as part of a broader network of air and space assets, so simply minimizing the radar cross section of a platform does not reflect the true complexity of the stealth equation.   "There are several levels to any stealth problem — the system level, the platform level, and the technology level," explains Doug Young, vice president and deputy program manager for strike, Northrop Grumman. "To the extent that engineers can navigate comfortably among those environments, they will be very successful."   But elegant engineering solutions alone won't guarantee mission success for LO platforms.   "As we design new systems, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our adversary," says San Miguel. "As fast as we think of something new, we're also thinking of a countermeasure for it, trying to psyche out how someone with different objectives might try to attack us. That's the inherent cat and mouse game of warfare."   The most successful LO engineers in the future, claims Young, will be those who can suspend disbelief, start with a clean mental sheet, and remove from their thinking any perceptions of the past that might constrain their view of what's possible.   "Don't accept anything you already know as being required or the right answer," he advises. "If you want to create a new possibility, you have to have a future that is empty and available to accept that possibility."   Regardless of how stealth technologies and tactics evolve, one thing remains certain, declares Ireland. "Stealthy airplanes are sexy. Working in this field gives you a chance to be around things that few other people know about, and to affect the design of a truly unique platform. When that aircraft is produced, you'll be able to say, 'I did that, and I know how I made it better."

Wanna Make Stuff Disappear? Learn How Stealth Technology Is Changing the Game

Cyberwar has posed a danger to our nation since the birth of the internet, since any information that can be accessed online through multiple locations is inherently insecure. In the 1983 movie "WarGames," Matthew Broderick plays a teenaged computer geek who accidentally hacks into a military supercomputer and almost starts World War III. This hyperbolic plot actually led President Ronald Reagan to create the first presidential directive on cybersecurity. Acceleration Over the Past Decade Today, cyberwar is an even more serious threat to national security. While we might think of powerful weapons as being physical objects, cyberweapons can steal information. The U.S. military has an arsenal of weapons and sophisticated intelligence, but our high-tech systems also leave us vulnerable to cyberattacks.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. There has been an increased frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks in recent years. Over the last decade, battlefields have changed, and combat in cyberspace is tricky because it is invisible and unpredictable. According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), "Cyberspace is now recognized as a critical domain of operations by the U.S. military and its protection is a national security issue." Stuxnet was the first known attack that allowed hackers to manipulate physical objects in the real-world. The Stuxnet worm, which targets industrial control systems, sabotaged the Iranian nuclear industry by attacking uranium sites and making centrifuges explode. In 2012, whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. and Israel were behind this cyberweapon, ABC News explained. What Cyberwar Looks Like The key to thriving in the modern world is brain over brawn. In business and in battle, information is the new weapon, and it can cause more physical damage than you might expect. As state-sponsored hackers get to work, new types of threats emerge. Cyberespionage involves stealing secrets and obtaining sensitive classified information for military advantage. Another type of cyberweapon involves denial of service, where a computer worm can intentionally overload a federal government system, shutting it down. Hackers can steal intellectual property and disrupt financial systems, such as the Israeli Tel Aviv stock exchange in 2012. They can also destroy or disable critical infrastructure, such as radar, communications systems, power grids and transportation systems.   Even messing with email can have deadly consequences. National Security Agency (NSA) analysts have supported war fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan. By creating false messages and intercepting real ones, they created confusion and distrust among Al-Qaeda. Using these techniques allowed them to lure enemies into traps, which helped kill more than 4,000 insurgents, according to the NSA. Battlefields Without Boundaries In an interview with NPR, foreign affairs journalist Fred Kaplan said, "You can count how many intercontinental ballistic missiles each side has. How do you know what kind of cyber tools and techniques one side might have developed? It's invisible." Since our critical systems are online, they're intrinsically vulnerable. Therefore, defense involves early detection of threats and designing software that's resilient enough to be repaired quickly. The military must train troops for futuristic battle — cyberwar — while embracing ancient techniques as a backup plan. The U.S. Navy, for example, is training its officers to navigate using stars just in case GPS systems get hacked. In today's battleground, information management technologies like Northrop Grumman's Cyber Warfare Integration Network can link weapon systems together in a network, making the whole stronger than the sum of its parts. This capability empowers our military but makes operations more complicated. In cyberspace, we also lose traditional boundaries, such as borders between countries and the separation between the private sector and government.

Cyberwar: The Most Stealthy Weapon Is Information

Smartphones are arguably one of the most convenient inventions of the 21st century. We can make phone calls, browse the internet, bank online and post to social media, all from one device. Unfortunately, smartphones can also be a data goldmine for hackers. Last year, Engadget reported on T-Mobile's reveal to customers that a bug in their system allowed hackers access to their email addresses, accounts and personal information. So, is your device safe? Do you know how phone hacking works or how to prevent hacking? How Phone Hacking Works When T-Mobile discovered that they had a bug that allowed hackers to steal customer information — including International Mobile Subscriber Identity numbers — they were able to stop it before it caused too much damage. This attack, however, perfectly illustrates how easily hackers can steal information. Motherboard warned that once hackers have International Mobile Subscriber Identity numbers, they can track the locations of their victims or intercept phone calls. SIM cards are also targeted by hackers, Motherboard noted, allowing them to steal a customer's phone number and take control of their identity. Be Vigilant in Public Spaces Unsecured Wi-Fi is an easy target for hackers, according to the Harvard Business Review. Free internet access may come at a cost when visiting airports or cafes. The data shared over these unsecured networks is just that — unsecured and unencrypted. All it takes is for someone to exploit a flaw in the network to gain access to browsing behaviors, account logins and even transactions made over that connection. As far as remote attacks go, apps seem to be the most efficient way of hacking into mobile devices. The seemingly endless quantity of apps available means that it's impossible for companies to root through the coding of every single one to ensure that they are safe. This means that malicious coding that steals data could live in those apps. Wired explained that hackers can use malware to trick users into downloading seemingly harmless apps, which gives them access to the phone's operating system. How to Prevent Hacking While the attacks themselves now outpace safeguarding capabilities, there are preventative measures users can take to protect themselves. Cell phone providers, such as Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, allow users to create a password specifically when calling customer support, which could effectively deter hackers from stealing phone numbers, per Motherboard. Additionally, passwords should be different for each phone app; password management systems like LastPass can help create encrypted passwords. Users can also install security features like two-step verification and biometrics to gain access to their phones. Adapting to an Ever-Hackable World Hacking has evolved into the new blackmail. While the threat is very real and dangerous, there are ways to prevent it and recover. Don't let yourself fall victim to a preventable attack — install security features like two-factor authentication, be wary of public Wi-Fi networks and implement encrypted passwords.

How Phone Hacking Works and How to Prevent It

Imagine a chess match in which the rules are constantly changing as new pieces with unexpected capabilities are developed. That is the world of cybersecurity experts, battling resourceful cybercriminals and foreign agents along the frontiers of technology. Recently, Infosec Island took a look at three emerging technologies: quantum computing, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles. All have the potential to transform our lives — but in the wrong hands (and there are plenty of bad actors out there), each can also pose major new cybersecurity threats, posing new vulnerabilities. A New Technology Horizon: Quantum Computing After decades on the technology horizon, quantum computing is becoming a reality, harnessing some of the most bizarre properties of subnuclear physics to transform how computing is done. Computational tasks that were formerly impossible — or so time-consuming to solve, even on a supercomputer, as to be effectively impossible — will become easy. That is the good news. The bad news, per Infosec Island, is that quantum computing can make cracking encryption systems radically easier. Vast troves of confidential data — currently protected by encryption — will be left exposed and vulnerable. This is one of the greatest looming security threats: Bad actors may already be stealing encrypted data, anticipating that they will be able to read it once they get their hands on quantum technology. Fortunately, there is more good news. According to ZDnet, a mathematical tool called lattice cryptography can provide encryption so powerful and robust against attack that even quantum computers will not be able to crack it. But security professionals will have a huge task in deploying lattice cryptography, along with other network security technologies, to protect existing data stores from evolving threats. Artificial Intelligence  Artificial intelligence, like the digital computer itself, is a multi-use technology with a limitless range of potential applications. The latest generation of AI technology exploits so-called neural nets that replicate some of the structures of the human brain. A neural net system is able to learn from experience in ways that its designers could not fully predict in advance. But this same capability, warns Infosec Island, can be applied to develop malware that is also capable of learning from experience — for example, learning how to detect network security technologies, then trick them into allowing the malware through the protective barriers. Neural nets and other AI technologies pose another challenge for the good guys, reported Technology Review. These tools can also be enlisted as protectors — but with some real risks. One is that we may simply put too much confidence in them. A more subtle risk is that we may not fully understand what our own cybersecurity AI is doing, or why. Things get complicated if your sentries can't tell you exactly what they are watching out for. Connected and Autonomous Vehicles  Also high on the list of emerging cybersecurity threats is the threat of hacking into connected and autonomous vehicles, notes Infosec Island. Here the threat is not so much the specific malware technologies involved — which may be new or old — as the inherent danger posed by hacked vehicles or other devices. A hacked database can expose confidential information, but a hacked car might hurt people. And, as another article in Technology Review points out, the challenge of understanding neural nets applies not only to the threat of deliberate hacking, but also to uncertainties about what AIs are learning when we train them. For this reason, the article noted, the Pentagon is now putting special emphasis on understanding the actions of autonomous military devices. On these three technology fronts, and others, the ever-changing technology chess game between cybersecurity defenders and bad actors is pushing deep into the frontiers of emerging technology. Even the (not always) "smart home" can be a target for sophisticated new forms of cyberattack. Are you interested in joining a team that is fighting back against cyberthreats worldwide? Check out careers here.

New Quantum Computing Cybersecurity Threats Loom Along the Tech Frontier

 The intelligence community is wielding a new weapon against criminals: the smartphone. In New York City, all 35,000 officers carry smartphones linked to Domain Awareness System (DAS), a $40-million computer-based awareness system developed with Microsoft that gives cops access to live video feeds around the city from some 8,000 cameras.    The NYPD has been improving DAS, adding analytics, pattern recognition and predictive policing functions since the system was created in 2008. In 2016, New York news channel NY1 reported that DAS helped cops from the 73rd Precinct make arrests. The cops got an alert from DAS that shots had been fired at an address in Brooklyn. The officers discovered bullet casings on the roof. Using their phones to access DAS, they found a woman in the building had an outstanding arrest warrant. After getting a search warrant via their phones, they found two guns in the woman's apartment and made three arrests.   Enable targeting cookies to view this content.   The New York program was inspired by one in London. Other police departments in Chicago and Los Angeles are using similar data-based predictive analysis tools, and the intelligence community is employing other AI-based technologies like facial recognition to solve crimes. The use of such technology has sparked a predictable outcry about privacy and the potential misuses of such technology.    Who's Using What?    The NYPD's network of 8,000 surveillance cameras pales in comparison to the U.K.'s 6 million. London is probably the most heavily surveilled place on Earth, with one camera for every 10 people. U.K. police are also applying AI in new ways. For instance, in the city of Durham, police are using an AI tool designed to figure out whether a detainee should be kept in custody based on their perceived likelihood to commit more crimes. London police also use a facial recognition system that matches faces in crowds to a database of 2.9 million images of criminals.    In the U.S., the intelligence community also makes use of AI. The FBI, for instance, uses image recognition to identify criminals by their tattoos. In addition to the New York and Chicago police departments, some 60 local police departments employ technology from PredPol, which forecasts where crimes might occur based on past data. The LAPD, meanwhile, uses AI for predictive analysis about where crimes are likely to occur. If there's a string of robberies, for instance, then the LAPD will alert patrols to keep a close eye on nearby neighborhoods where the next robberies might happen.    Fears of "Minority Report"    Sci-fi authors have explored the idea of preemptive policing, most notably in Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report," which imagined the technique being used to frame the protagonist, John Anderton. Such fears were revived with a report from Stanford University looking at artificial intelligence and life in 2030, by which time it predicted predictive policing would be the norm.    Critics are likely to continue to take aim at AI surveillance tools on privacy grounds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance, has argued that police and elected officials can use such tools to spy on critics and political opponents. The ACLU has reasoned that surveillance can have a chilling effect on public life, making citizens less free since their every action is being filmed.    Citizens have always had to weigh liberty and security. Different societies have arrived — and will continue to arrive — at different answers. 

Evolution of the Intelligence Community: Smartphones, AI and Predictive Policing

In everyday life, advanced technologies — such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) — are so common that they fade into the background. Even though these advancements are fairly recent, they became ubiquitous so quickly that it's easy to take them for granted. In the battlespace, it's an entirely different world. Much of today's cutting-edge technology started as military research and development projects, and then evolved to become the gadgets and services we all know too well. But those consumer conveniences aren't built for the battlefield. If your smart speaker misunderstands your command, it might play a song you didn't want to hear. If that type of flaw occurred on a fighter jet or a tank, the consequences could be deadly. This isn't overstating the challenge. In the defense industry, security and reliability are a matter of life and death. At the same time, if adversaries are adopting the latest technology, militaries must keep up, or suffer a disadvantage on the battlefield. Built on a Foundation of AI Machine learning is a type of AI involving algorithms that improve on their own based on data and experience. The more practice they get, the smarter they become. These algorithms are the foundation for many of our favorite modern conveniences: personalized suggestions for your next favorite TV show, ride-service apps, self-driving vehicles and much more. In the defense industry, AI could give troops more situational awareness and the ability to make faster decisions. The more the military can outsource to machines, the easier it will be for warfighters to focus on the big picture and the details that matter most for surviving and protecting their nation. In some ways, AI is already in the defense toolkit (e.g., automated target recognition). Now, the next generation of AI for defense will upgrade even more tools, so machines can perform tasks that previously required human intervention. Advanced Sensors and Connectivity As the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) moves toward making more advanced battle tools, sensors and connectivity will be two big pieces of the puzzle. The DOD is looking to connect and integrate sensors with shooters and platforms across all domains, commands and services. The initiative, called JADC2 (Joint All-Doman Command and Control), is about adding sensors and connectivity to the battlefield and connecting those new capabilities with different branches of the U.S. military. A big challenge here is adding sensors to legacy systems that are often intended to last decades. While consumers are used to buying a new phone every two or three years, militaries often operates multimillion dollar vehicles for several decades. And the sensors aren't your everyday electronic components, either — they must have built-in security measures. In this case, rather than implement a sweeping update, sensors are gradually introduced to existing systems. Plus, these sensors are only useful if troops can access the information they hold. A truly connected battlefield needs reliable, fast data transfer. You won't find many 5G connections or Wi-Fi hot spots in the contested and remote areas where militaries often needs them. An even greater challenge is security, because the more connected devices you have, the broader the attack surface you must deal with. More devices available to manipulate means more opportunities for hackers or bad actors to break into the systems. That said, there are solutions to some of these challenges, and more are being developed today. For example, Northrop Grumman's gateway systems are like "Wi-Fi in the sky." They provide secure connections via airborne and tanker platforms, which can help mitigate risk. Seeing Through the Weeds As sensors and connectivity provide unprecedented amounts of information, machine learning helps bring it all together. In stressful situations, too much information is the opposite of helpful. Machine learning algorithms can help weed out the extraneous data to avoid information overload. As more technology is rolled out to the military, there is a delicate balance between connectivity, efficiency and security. New solutions, such as Northrop Grumman's DA/RC software, could provide decision-making for manned and unmanned fleets. For example, a leading prototype JADC2 system can connect and control a range of systems across domains and services. This type of machine-learning capability, layered on top of trusted legacy systems, is shaping tomorrow's tech-driven warfare. Machines could, for instance, observe the surroundings and decide on the optimal weapon for a scenario. A Secure and Ethical Approach To build these new systems and support, Northrop Grumman is using a DevSecOps approach in which development, security and operations are included every step of the way. The company is also collaborating with universities, such as Carnegie Mellon, for research and development, as well as startups, such as Credo AI, for cutting-edge technologies. Underlying these various technologies, the government and industry partners are aiming for a secure and ethical rollout of artificial intelligence and high-tech tools. That means thinking deeply and strategically about letting machines take the wheel for tedious tasks while always keeping a human in the loop for critical decisions. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

How Machine Learning and AI Are Enhancing Joint Force Operations

The word "warfare" summons images of bombs bursting in air, tanks rolling across scarred battlefields and the rat-a-tat of gunfire. But technological advances in warfare are making war invisible as tools like infrared lasers, fire control radars and cyberweapons are increasingly being deployed. As technological warfare evolves, many conventional weapons are losing some of their punch. Rather than replacing such weapons, the evolving arsenal of invisible weapons enhances them and introduces new levels of complexity to warfare. Futuristic Weapons In the movies, lasers shoot colorful streams of light that can set distant objects aflame. Only the latter part is accurate. The infrared lasers used for military purposes are invisible but can actually heat up distant targets. A powerful laser can heat the explosive in an artillery shell to trigger an explosion or shoot down drones. This isn't some sci-fi vision, either. The U.S. Navy is currently fielding a laser weapons system in the Persian Gulf on the U.S.S. Ponce amphibious transport system. It's considered to be the world's first active laser weapon, according to CNN. Unlike bullets or missiles, precisely targeted laser beams travel at the speed of light. That laser is designed to destroy small boats and aircraft. However, a new generation of Navy laser systems might be able to shoot down missiles. Laser weapons of varying power levels are being developed for different missions and target sets in the air, on land or at sea. These devices can be installed on range of armored vehicles, naval vessels and even aircraft. Fighting in the Electromagnetic Spectrum While there's nothing futuristic about radar — it has been used since World War II — the technology keeps improving. State-of-the-art modular radars enabled by gallium nitride semiconductor chips have far greater detection range compared to traditional systems and provide fire control for targeting enemy aircraft and missiles with interceptors. These radars precisely determine the target's trajectory and its future position. For fighter aircraft, the United States and its allies have begun employing fifth-generation active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technology in combat. Two examples are Northrop Grumman's APG-81 AESA for the F-35 and the TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar for the Marine Corps. For ground surveillance aircraft and other platforms, Northrop Grumman engineers have developed the Vanguard Radar, which can scale up in size and power by adding radar panels like building blocks. Similarly, electronic warfare is a battle that takes place in the electromagnetic spectrum. Electronic weapons can be used to thwart and detect IED attacks, jam enemy communications — including radar — and take control of enemy drones. The Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device (RCIED) Electronic Warfare (JCREW) is one example of using electronic warfare to prevent IEDs from setting off. Soldiers have operated this software-programmable jammer, also developed by Northrop Grumman, in the field for many years, and it has saved countless lives. Electronic warfare systems carried by the EA-18G Growler emit powerful but invisible radio frequency energy to suppress enemy radar and communications sites, denying them the ability to target and shoot down friendly forces. The ALQ-131 pod can protect aircraft from radar-guided weapons. At a smaller scale, microwave energy weapons that operate a lot like radar have been developed to fry electronic equipment using pulses of power. These high-powered microwave devices have been successfully tested against rows of computers and even flying drones. Finally, because of advances in technological warfare, today's battles are increasingly fought in cyberspace. Cyberwarfare encompasses everything from the widely reported Stuxnet attack against an Iranian uranium enrichment site to Russia's takedown of Ukraine's power grid. Often, the damage from such attacks degrades an opponent's ability to operate and can also disrupt the economy. According to The Guardian, Lloyd's of London estimated that a successful hack against cloud computing services could cost as much as the cleanup for Hurricane Katrina. A cyberattack could lay the groundwork for a conventional invasion in some cases, as could an electromagnetic pulse attack. National Interest explained that in the U.S., a low-yield nuclear missile detonated at high altitude could take out 75 percent of the nation's power. Such invisible futuristic weapons can be just as scary as conventional ones and ultimately wreak more damage. Fighting them requires a new breed of soldiers who are just as comfortable in front of a computer terminal as behind a gun. That may not fit with the standard view of war heroics, but these days, taking down a cyberattack is becoming just as critical to victory as shooting down an enemy plane.

Futuristic Weapons: Technological Advances in Warfare Make Fighting Invisible

A revolution in military technology. Those words are likely to evoke images of superweapons, or perhaps a new generation of sensors and software. But the next revolution in military technology may center around one of the humblest yet most ubiquitous items of military equipment: the service member's uniform. Called second skin, this technology aims at producing fabrics that "breathe," keeping the wearer comfortable while protecting against chemical and biological agents. On the battlefield, these futuristic military uniforms can make the difference between effectiveness and incapacity, between life and death. Beyond the battlefield, the same technology can save first responders and other emergency workers - as well as serve a host of everyday and industrial purposes. A Breath of Life The modern era of chemical and biological warfare agents began a hundred years ago with the use of chlorine and mustard gas during World War I. Commanders soon discovered that the military value of these agents lay not only in their ghastly effects but on the protective measures they forced on defenders. American troops deployed in the Middle East and Afghanistan face the brutal challenges of wearing full protective gear while fighting in an extreme climate against enemies believed to possess and use chemical warfare agents. Gas masks and other protective gear are clumsy and generally miserable to wear. A soldier encased in full protection against chemical and biological agents soon becomes bathed in sweat, overheated and exhausted. Strenuous activity is misery at best, and soon becomes all but impossible — and fresh air is at a premium. Alertness and mental focus are worn down. In these conditions, soldiers do not fight well. The solution to this problem is protective gear that "breathes" — that lets air flow through, and especially allows water vapor out — so that perspiration can evaporate, the body's primary cooling mechanism. Yet the gear must still block chemical and biological agents. And that is where second-skin technology comes into play. But this technology is really just one application of a broader revolution centering on carbon nanotubes. Carbon Nanotubes Go Big From the dawn of modern chemistry more than a century ago, carbon has been recognized for its ability to build larger and more complex molecular structures than any other element. Organic chemistry is largely about the things you can do with carbon; it is known for good reason as the building block of life. Starting around the 1970s, what may be called the architectural potential of carbon grew in attention, and nanogloss dates the first true nanotubes — essentially nano-scale pipes or hoses — to 1991. These pipes, built of linked carbon atoms, can be only a few times larger in diameter than individual atoms, a fineness that earlier engineers could scarcely have dreamed or even conceived of. Carbon nanotubes have a broad range of potential uses; for example, they can function as fantastically strong nano-ropes. As reported by Engadget, researchers are also working on developing them as transistors more compact than can be achieved with silicon. But it is their ability to function as pipelines, writes Anne M. Stark of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, that has researchers developing fabrics with membranes that incorporate carbon nanotubes. These nanotubes — five thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair — provide channels that air and water vapor can pass through, but also block biological agents. Additionally, technology companies with a specialization in aerospace and global security— including Northrop Grumman — are doing significant research in conjunction with academia and government labs. Carbon nanotubes are not restricted to second skins; they are seeing broad usage in other innovations including flexible electronics, advanced manufacturing of aerospace components such as unique optical structures and even the potential development of space elevators. Even viruses are too bulky to pass through the nanotubes, though air and water vapor pass so freely that the fabric "breathes" better than popular commercial fabrics such as Gore-Tex. Chemical agents are more compact, and could slip through even a nanotube. The solution is to make the nanotubes smart by fitting them with functional groups of molecules that will act as gatekeepers to block the threat. Says Livermore team leader Kuang Jen Wu, the fabric "will be like a smart second skin that responds to the environment." The researchers believe that these new, breathable and smart protective fabrics — which may cover any fit of full body clothing plus helmet and gloves, making it resemble present-day combat gear — could be ready for the battlefield within 10 years. But this technology will not stay confined to the battlefield. Like technologies from radio to paramedic services, second skin will soon find civilian applications beyond futuristic military uniforms. Shields Into Plowshares The first civilian application for second-skin technology will surely be for hazmat teams and other first responders. Emergency workers also face the threat of deadly agents they must be protected against, combined with the need for strength and alertness that are quickly sapped by conventional protective gear. Beyond the realm of emergency services, second-skin technology is sure to find a host of other uses, practical and perhaps fashionable as well. Protection against dangerous biological agents will also protect against features of the environment such as hay-fever pollen that can be annoying even if not dangerous. As the technology matures, other health-related capabilities are sure to emerge from second-skin technology. More broadly, the ability of fabrics to "breathe" is crucial to comfort particularly in warm weather, making this technology applicable to everything we wear, as well as to curtains, tents, and flexible dividers of all sorts, as well as industrial filters — a range of uses along the whole spectrum from utilitarian to fashionable. Smart breathing adds yet another range of potential uses. By responding to pheromones released by the body, for example, these fabrics might even respond to our moods. Who knows what fashion designers will come up with once they get their hands on smart fabrics?

The Second Skin: Military Uniforms Go High Tech

  In the world of science fiction, it is an old, cautionary story. An autonomous, intelligent robotic defense system goes insane — or simply misinterprets its instructions — and attacks everyone, including the civilization it was designed to defend. For defense planners today, this scenario is no longer pure science fiction. No, the Pentagon is not planning giant orbital robot battle stations that might erroneously attack Earth — but artificial intelligence (AI) technology, and especially "deep learning," are increasingly being applied to real-world defense tasks such as analyzing reconnaissance images. In order to rely on information detected by such sophisticated technology, defense planners and commanders need to understand how deep learning works. And precisely because it is such a powerful technology, fully understanding it turns out to be a very challenging task. Deep Learning and Image Recognition The technology of deep learning, as Will Knight reports at MIT Technology Review, is inspired by the complex architecture of the human brain. The AI software simulates the multiple layers of neurons and synapses, and also simulates the learning process of the human mind. A classic example of the deep-learning process is teaching the system to recognize a cat. The system is provided with a large library of imagery, some of which includes images of cats. In a "tuning" or training process, the system attempts to identify whether or not there is a cat in an image, and records a positive score whenever its human trainers confirm that there is in fact a cat in the image. Because the system can swiftly crunch through vast numbers of training images, it can soon learn to identify cats with high reliability. Identifying cats is rarely a vital security issue. But the same technology can be used for other image recognition tasks — for example, to scan thousands or millions of satellite images for evidence of tanks or missile launchers. Hence, the interest of defense planners in deep-learning technology. How Do You Recognize a Cat? But this is where things get challenging. While deep-learning technology can be taught to recognize a cat — or a missile launcher — it cannot tell us how it performs this accomplishment. Says Knight, "it isn't clear whether the system may be focusing on the whiskers, the ears, or even the cat's blanket in an image." Sometimes this is not a problem. Perhaps the AI system can pass its results on to human intelligence analysts, who can double check to make sure the AI is correct in its identification of, say, missile launchers. But in an urgent crisis situation, there might be no time to wait for direct human confirmation — the launchers need to be identified and engaged now. In that situation, planners and commanders need to know exactly how much confidence they can place in an AI system. Which means learning how the AI learns, and understanding its (simulated) "thought" processes.  Understanding how deep learning works is so challenging that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has no fewer than 13 different research projects underway, using a range of different techniques to improve our understanding of the deep-learning process. Which also explains why Northrop Grumman — a traditional leader in drones, autonomous systems and defense robotics — is at the forefront of research into understanding deep learning.

Deep Learning, and the Art of Understanding Robots

Modern warfare calls for high-tech equipment. Even a reliable, classic defense tool — radar — has room for improvement. Therefore, Northrop Grumman is replacing legacy equipment with updated radar to detect objects with greater accuracy without sacrificing mobility. Current radar technology enables machines to track multiple types of rocket, artillery and mortar rounds simultaneously. Radar systems are becoming increasingly digital, so in the future we could start to see the merging of radar, electronic warfare, communications and other functions. While older radar systems were mechanically scanned, the latest systems are defined by software. With active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technology, a beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without physically repositioning the antenna. This has the effect of giving an operating machine excellent peripheral vision, because while the equipment faces one direction, AESA radar can also focus separate beams on other areas.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content.  Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) The newest radar systems are also more jam-proof and harder to detect. AESA radar was developed from modern airborne radar designs, but it is now being used to equip versatile ground machines. Northrop Grumman's Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system is a single radar that can replace a handful of other legacy radars. While ground and air defense missions previously required separate radars, G/ATOR does both. Having one radar system for multiple missions reduces operation and maintenance costs. It was developed to protect Marine expeditionary forces, but in the future, it may also be useful for the Army for ground missions and Air Force for air missions. G/ATOR detects and tracks targets such as rockets, artillery, mortars, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The antenna array rotates to provide 360-degree coverage, and the entire system can be set up in less than an hour. For maximum mobility, the antenna and its drive system are mounted on a trailer. A lightweight cooling system uses forced circulation from fans blowing ambient air through the array. The trailer is pulled by a truck which has a mounted generator to provide power to the radar system. A Humvee with a shelter provides the ability to communicate via radios. Although G/ATOR is powerful, it breaks down into lightweight components so it is more mobile than traditional radar and can be transported via helicopter or cargo aircraft. Highly Adaptable Multi-Mission Radar (HAMMR)   Highly Adaptable Multi-Mission Radar (HAMMR) is a high performance radar system that provides full capability on the move. Like G/ATOR, it takes the AESA technology from airborne fighter radars and repurposes it for ground missions. This system can track multiple targets (rockets, artillery, mortars, aircraft and small UAS) traveling in a variety of paths and trajectories. Unlike existing systems, HAMMR is designed as a secure software defined, hardware enabled, mission system so it is modular and scalable. It can rapidly be reconfigured in the field with software upgrades to address new threats. It can counter cruise missiles. The radar spins to provide 360-degree coverage, and it has a small footprint. It's mountable on a vehicle so the operators are protected even when they are on the move. Tracking targets while moving greatly improves the system's survivability.   Digital Radar   Engineers at Northrop Grumman are developing systems that use digitally beamed radar. The company's chief engineer and system architect on the radar team said, "We have just begun to scratch the surface with digital radar." The chief went onto explain, "These are just coming to market now, and we have started to explore the capabilities that we could potentially bring to the warfighter. With digital, we have so much more power and flexibility available to us [than analog radars]. There is a huge capability improvement that is available that we're going bring to fruition in the next ten to 20 years." The biggest challenge that remains is figuring out how to handle the data that digital radar collects. Research is still needed regarding signal processing, data processing and data dissemination. There is an opportunity for a single piece of hardware to serve several different functions at once. Figuring out exactly how this will be done is a multidisciplinary effort that requires electrical engineers, software engineers, systems engineers, mechanical engineers and even more. While the basic principles of radar remain the same as always, the technology at the core of radar systems has changed. Thanks to decades of research and work by electrical, mechanical and software engineers — including at Northrop Grumman, where you can actively take part — radar systems are now more versatile and modular, while still remaining accurate. 

Radar Systems Get a High-Tech Upgrade

If you've ever struggled to remember a password, then biometric security might have some appeal. By recognizing physical features that are unique to you — like your fingerprints, face and even your ears — biometric technology allows you to unlock your favorite devices and apps effortlessly in a secure environment. Old Idea, New Techniques While various computer manufacturers have experimented with fingerprint-based IDs, the practice saw a huge boost in 2013 when Apple introduced Touch ID for its iPhone. Since then, biometrics have been used to secure all types of applications.  MasterCard and Nymi announced in 2015 that they could authenticate a user's credit card purchases by measuring the user's heartbeat, said VentureBeat. Google has also looked into using speech patterns as an identifier under its Project Abacus, TechCrunch reported. Descartes Biometrics uses customers' ears as biometric markers, according to Wired. There are parts of China where commuters can use facial recognition to pay for their train or bus fare, according to Engadget. KFC has also experimented with face-based payment in that country, as TechCrunch reported. Allied Market Research predicts that the global facial recognition market will be a $9.6 billion business by 2022, fueled by targeted advertising. An electronic billboard might discern your age, gender and ethnicity and tailor an ad based on those factors, a la Minority Report. Security Concerns Despite the industry's fondness for biometric security, the current technology is far from foolproof. Body parts can easily be replicated through various methods, putting your financial, medical and personal information at risk. As Alvaro Bedoya, professor of law at Georgetown University, told Wired, a hacker can "steal" biometric identifiers by lifting your fingerprint from a glass or taking a high-resolution image of your ear. One security exec was able to hack into Apple's Touch ID by transferring the iPhone owner's fingerprints onto a blob of Play-Doh, according to Fortune. The trick also worked for Android and Microsoft-based devices. In 2016, researchers were able to use fake fingerprints to fool biometric systems as much as 65 percent of the time, according to The New York Times. To make matters worse, hackers have compromised millions of fingerprints, per The Washington Post. Similarly, a Vietnamese security company was able to fool Apple's Face ID with a high-resolution mask, as BGR reported. The company said that Face ID wasn't secure enough to be used in business transactions. To their credit, Apple claims that the chance of a false match in its Touch ID system is 1 in 50,000. And Google's Android system typically takes eight to 10 images of a fingerprint in an effort to thwart hackers, said The New York Times. The Future of Biometrics The danger is that the demand for biometric security will prompt a slew of less-than-secure solutions. But the market demand for biometrics will ensure that top-tier companies like Apple and Google will focus on perfecting the technology. As usual, humans are the weakest link in security, so new protocols will need to be initiated to ensure that biometric markers like fingerprints are protected. The other issue is privacy. It's an open question whether citizens in the West will submit to facial recognition software everywhere they go. Already, some firms — like Israel's D-ID, which slightly alters photos so algorithms can't recognize them — are creating self-defense measures for citizens who want to protect their privacy. More low-tech solutions include wearing sunglasses with hallucinogenic patterns and wearing masks in public. In the end, consumers might conclude that passwords weren't so bad after all.

Biometric Security: How the Fingerprint Is Replacing the Password

In the civilian world, algorithms help humans make sense of massive amounts of data to support faster, better decision-making. These mathematical instructions enable computers to lighten the mental load so that we can make split-second decisions in scenarios where we're faced with many options. On the battlefield, they can even help warfighters — and the intelligent machines on which they rely — make the right decisions quickly in critical situations. Algorithms and Human Innovation While we once watched television on just a few channels, we now have thousands of movies and shows available on demand. An algorithm that runs behind your favorite streaming platform can help you decide what to watch next by suggesting shows that are similar to others you've watched. But algorithms are also helping with more serious decisions, such as those that come with hiring employees and investing in startups, according to Harvard Business Review, or even identifying cancer, as Nature points out. Just as a robot can handle dull or dangerous tasks in a factory, computers can handle the tedious aspects of decision-making, freeing up humans to use their intuition, creativity and emotional intelligence to innovate. For instance, instead of having a physician search through thousands of CT scans to find early markers of cancer, an algorithm could do the research, giving time back to the physician for more complex decision-making, such as determining the proper course of treatment for their patient. Likewise, mathematical equations are also being used to speed processes, simplify functions and enable greater human innovation in the defense industry. Algorithmic Building Blocks of JADC2 Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) aims to connect platforms and weapons across a common architecture. The ability to sift through data is becoming more important as new and legacy systems grow more interconnected in modern military networks, and sharing information among all branches of the U.S. military and its allies is an essential aspect of warfare in the digital age. But empowering the Joint Force is a complex issue. The defense industry is working to give military personnel access to as much information as possible while also avoiding clutter. This requires adding sensors to everything, connecting military systems through a secure communications network and ultimately making sense of all the data that's collected and transmitted. That's where algorithms can help clear the clutter. If a civilian vehicle can automatically turn on the windshield wipers when it rains or activate the brakes to avoid a collision, imagine what a military vehicle could do. For example, a fighter jet or tanker could make its own decisions by automatically taking an action if a certain set of circumstances occurs. In these cases, simple decisions with predictable outcomes wouldn't have to be made by human personnel, which could help reduce the crew's workload. Remaining Challenges Military environments aren't always predictable. No matter how many scenarios you test an algorithm on in the lab, there may be unexpected situations on the battlefield. How will algorithms respond to brand-new situations they haven't seen before? When should a human intervene? These questions pose challenges that are still being considered and solved. This is an era of transition between legacy and cutting-edge systems. Transformational technology, such as Northrop Grumman's Distributed Autonomy/Responsive Control system, can provide clues and insight for humans to help them make the final decisions. The system strikes a balance between autonomy and human control through collaborative autonomy, an essential building block of modern defense systems and a critical factor in the Joint Force's success. Algorithms might not amount to a cyborg army straight out of science fiction, but they can grant our forces superhuman decision-making capabilities, even in situations of intense pressure. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Algorithms Are Powering Collaborative Autonomy for the Joint Force

 In the first six months after its attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese navy swept the Pacific and Indian Oceans from Hawaii to Ceylon. It sank dozens of American, British and other Allied ships, often in one-sided victories. The goal was to clear such a vast region of sea around Japan that no counterattack would be practical, forcing the U.S. and other Allies to accept domination of the western Pacific and Southeast Asia. But a Japanese plan to round out its successes led instead to a decisive defeat of the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway. Four of the six Japanese aircraft carriers that had struck at Pearl Harbor went to the bottom of the ocean, compared with just one American carrier lost. The initiative in the Pacific War shifted relentlessly toward U.S. and Allied forces. A Sea Battle — and an Information Battle Today, as recounted by Alan Taylor in Atlantic magazine, Midway is most remembered as the first great, full-scale clash between fleets of aircraft carriers. Indeed, it was only the second battle between carriers — the first was just a month earlier, the Battle of the Coral Sea, in which the U.S. Navy fought a Japanese task force to a draw. But even before the first airstrikes were launched, as Mark Munson reports at warontherocks.com, the Battle of Midway also demonstrated the decisive role of the information battlefield in modern warfare. The Japanese high command had devised a complex plan intended to catch the Americans by surprise and complete the elimination of U.S. naval strength that had begun at Pearl Harbor. Instead, thanks to American codebreakers and information analysts, it was the Japanese navy that was taken by surprise and defeated. Midway Island, some 1,500 miles west of Hawaii, was the last outpost west of Hawaii that was still in U.S. hands — and the first vital link in the chain of bases that the U.S. would need to take the war to Japan. A Japanese landing there would thus deliver a crippling blow — and perhaps pave the way for an invasion of Hawaii itself. As part of the operation, Japan's Admiral Yamamoto and his colleagues dispatched coordinated forces across thousands of miles of the Pacific, extending as far as Alaska. These forces were intended to leave American commanders uncertain of what objectives the Japanese would strike at. What Admiral Yamamoto did not know was that the Americans had partially broken the Japanese top secret naval code.Seeking the Identify of "AF" The information provided by the code breakers was tantalizing but not complete. Japanese communications revealed that an attack was intended on a place code-named "AF." American analysts suspected that AF was Midway, but how could they be sure? To find out, the U.S. base on Midway was secretly ordered to broadcast a message "in the clear" (uncoded) saying that it was running low on drinking water. The Japanese intercepted the message — as they were intended to — and were soon reporting that "AF" was short of water. For the Japanese, it was a fatal mistake. They had been tricked into revealing their objective, while they remained in the dark about American moves in response. Japanese planners also mistakenly thought that the carrier USS Yorktown had been sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea. In fact, it only had been damaged, and was already back in service. Thus, the Japanese commanders thought that their four aircraft carriers were opposed by only two American carriers, when in fact they faced three, plus American aircraft on Midway itself. The coming battle would be more even than they realized — while their own complex plan left Japanese forces so spread out that they could not all support each other.Fire From the Sky, Fire on the Sea The battle itself began on June 3, 1942, when an American reconnaissance plane spotted part of the Japanese fleet. An airstrike by B-17s based on Midway had no effect. The next day, June 4, Japanese aircraft hit Midway, where they did considerable damage, but also got a tough reception from defending Grumman F4F Wildcats. But by that time, as Taylor notes, U.S. counterstrikes had already been launched toward the Japanese fleet. The American strikes, launched at extreme range, were not perfectly coordinated. The first waves of torpedo bombers, coming in low to launch their torpedoes, were pounded by antiaircraft fire and defending Japanese Zero fighters, and suffered heavy losses while scoring no hits. (Defective American torpedoes contributed to the failure.) But when American dive bombers appeared a few minutes later, approaching at high altitude, the Zero fighters were caught in the wrong position, too low to engage the new attackers. In addition, the Japanese carrier flight decks were crowded with planes being armed and fueled for follow-up strikes. Thus, the American dive bombers caught the Japanese carriers in the worst possible situation, their decks littered with bombs and gasoline hoses. Within minutes, three Japanese carriers were aflame from stem to stern. Later in the day a fourth suffered the same fate. All would sink or be scuttled by the next day. As all this was unfolding, Japanese airstrikes pounded the USS Yorktown, which would eventually sink on June 7. By then, the Japanese task force was retreating, crippled by the loss of its carriers. The Battle of Midway was over, but the Japanese navy would never fully recover from its losses — not only the four carriers, but trained pilots and crews as well. Modern aircraft carriers do not carry either torpedo bombers or dive bombers, which have been superseded by more capable strike aircraft. Thus, the most enduring lesson of Midway is that controlling the information battlefield is the key to victory. The modern expression for this information battlefield is C4ISR, standing for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. While computers did not yet exist in 1942, improvements in technology have only increased the power of information as the most decisive weapon of all.

The Battle of Midway: A Victory of Information

 The Battle of the Coral Sea was about the strategy of dealing with an unseen enemy. Nearly all competitive strategies have an element of knowing your opponent to gain the upper hand. For centuries, military forces have designated individuals and groups to provide reconnaissance and intelligence on enemy forces. In modern military technology, this is often wrapped up in the acronym C4ISR, which stands for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.  Enable targeting cookies to view this content. Use of Technology  Military powers of the past would employ whatever technology they had available. Take the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval engagement between two fleets that never even saw each other. That battle was possibly due to the use of SIGINT (signals intelligence) by U.S. forces, who located the Japanese fleet using CXAM radar.  This engagement of naval fleets was fought primarily by air from aircraft carriers. The first aircraft into the fight were Northrop Grumman F4F-3, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. The F4F fighter plane was a fighting staple of World War II and now has a place in the Smithsonian Museum. New Military Technology  Fighter plane technology has grown exponentially since the days of the F4F Wildcat. Take, for example, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider. Packed with the best of today's stealth technology, the B-21 is an update to the iconic stealth bomber, the B-2, which itself holds records including longest bomber run (44 hours). For those pilots over the Coral Sea during World War II, the aerial endurance demonstrated by the B-21 would have looked like something out of science fiction.  Technology has come a long way, and aviation and naval suppliers require knowledge in a variety of fields. The B-21 is still a work in progress, which means teams of engineers are working to integrate the newest radar and sensing technologies, but the computing power of a single modern bomber today exceeds the total that existed globally during World War II.  One of the reasons for this computational power is the simple need for data processing. Even a commercial surveying unmanned aerial vehicle, used in construction and mining industries, is capable of modeling a full 3-D model of the surrounding terrain. Couple that capability with personnel movement, anti-detection and stealth technologies, and communications systems, and the sophistication just keeps growing. Once airborne, the aircraft of today are outfitted with enough sensing technology that getting lost is nearly impossible.  Even without seeing the ships they were battling, the vessels engaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea built an understanding of their unseen enemies' movements. This command of intelligence was crucial to preventing damage. Ultimately, the Battle of the Coral Sea ended with both sides suffering aircraft losses.  As a leader in C4ISR, Northrop Grumman enables vehicles and vessels of all types to find their way effectively. From autonomous systems that can make on-the-fly decisions to sensing technology that can pinpoint the location of a threat, today's military machines are even more refined in the art of automated and sightless combat. Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

How the Battle of the Coral Sea Changed Military Technology

Over the last 20 years, anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zones have entered the global military strategy conversation in a big way. Although A2/AD methods have been around since antiquity, recent technology advances have catapulted them to center stage. Non-Western players like Russia and China are growing their resources to use A2/AD to their advantage, according to Defense One. The Chinese investment in ballistic missiles, submarines and air defense implies that they are focusing on preventing access to their shores. At the same time, Russia is growing their capabilities to advance their agenda and test the waters in Eastern Europe. The abundance of A2/AD technology strengthens their ability to control who can enter certain areas via normal transportation methods. Using their advanced air systems, Russia can hold a region hostage by controlling or monitoring an area's railroads, airports and ports, according to Defense One. While these A2/AD arsenals are expanding, the U.S. military has a dire need to meet the challenges this new world poses. The Air Force Needs a Stealth Upgrade Currently, only 12 percent of the U.S. Air Force fleet can operate in anti-access/area denial zones, according to National Defense Magazine. This poses a problem for the U.S., not only in terms of national security and protecting our fleet, but also when it comes to protecting our place in the world as a leader in military technology. In early 2017, the Air Force tasked Northrop Grumman with building a new stealth fighter called the B-21 Raider. According to National Defense Magazine, the B-21 Raider "is expected to give the Pentagon a new long-range strike system that can carry nuclear or conventional weapons deep into well-defended enemy airspace and not get shot down ... Pentagon officials have said ... they expect the aircraft to achieve initial operating capability in the mid-2020s." Another potential win for the Air Force would be adapting current A2/AD capabilities to meet modern-day challenges. While the B-21 is in production, the B-2 fighters are testing modifications to their Defense Management System, which uses sensors, software and other radar-evading technology to preserve and expand their stealth abilities. The upgrades would integrate new technology and modernize the fleet, said Military.com. Meeting the Challenge Ideally, counterinsurgency methods like working with international partners to expand areas of operations and gathering intelligence to develop strategies would be at the forefront of any plan of action, according to The Royal Swedish Academy of Air Sciences. At the same time, mainstream counterinsurgency isn't enough; defense systems and stealth technology need upgrades to match the threatening parties' technology so that both tactics can work together in the fight against aggressors. Meeting the challenges A2/AD zones provide is a long game, one that needs smart technology to counteract the actions being taken by other players. While we grow our arsenals and expand our own capabilities, it's important to keep a watchful eye on the growth and advancements of other countries' assets and how they are using them to wield power.

Combating Area Denial Zones: US Air Force Stealth Fleet Needs Upgrade

The glow of a firefly as dusk arrives on a warm, summer night. The radiant tentacles of a comb jellyfish deep in the dark abyss of the ocean. The bright rhythm of a glowworm as it moves through a humid cave. What do all of these organisms have in common? Their illuminating shades of green, blue and yellow are almost magical and present a beautiful spectacle on both land and sea, creating bright, vivid sparks of color. This natural phenomenon ignites a keen sense of discovery for researchers, technologists and scientists. This magic, known as bioluminescence, or the production and emission of light by a living organism, is most often seen with underwater living organisms, but bioluminescence can also play a role in national security. Where do the two intersect? Recent technological innovations have begun to challenge the idea of bioluminescence, transforming how we light our world for purposes such as medical research and military defense, as well as other key applications. One application for bioluminescence that could impact defense is being explored through Northrop Grumman's Target Acquisition via Bioluminescence and Snapping Shrimp (TABSS) project. TABSS, which was recently awarded to Northrop Grumman by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technology Office under its Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors (PALS) program, is taking expertise in sensing to a new level, using undersea organisms to assist in passively detecting adversarial manned and unmanned vessels in the water. Northrop Grumman will use both light and sound emitted from different underwater organisms such as plankton, jellyfish, and snapping shrimp to develop sensing hardware with increased sensitivity to achieve greater sensing range and endurance. It will also apply machine learning to recognize behavioral patterns in the marine environment to help differentiate target vessels from confounders such as dolphins, sharks and whales. Biological sensors occupy every maritime environment and have evolved multi-modal sensing capabilities across many domains - electrical, acoustic, optical (including in extremely low light), magnetic and chemical, and even tactile structures, in the form of mechanoreceptors, that are capable of detecting and triangulating minute changes in fluid flow as well as sources of disturbances. The TABSS Project, which involves advancing optical and acoustic sensing technologies as well as radar-related processing and machine learning, adds a new dimension to sensing that has not been fully explored and has application from undersea to space. Northrop Grumman's team includes expertise with undersea biological organisms from Duke University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The University of Memphis and Coda Octopus Colmek will contribute to the design, model and build of the sensing system. Northrop Grumman will apply its knowledge in undersea systems, Side-Looking Sonar, seabed warfare, submarine warfare and counter-unmanned underwater vehicle warfare. To learn more about the PALS program, click here.

Lighting Up the World with Bioluminescence Technology

Let the tale of poor James Howells and his lost cryptocurrency serve as a warning. In 2013, the Welsh information technology worker sold an old laptop he had once used to mine bitcoin and accidentally threw out the hard drive that held his coins. Fast forward to today — bitcoin has been pushing record highs, and Howells has found that, as of the time that the Wired article was written, he threw away more than $75 million. He wants to dig for the drive in a landfill at Newport, South Wales, but it could be sitting under 200,000 tons of trash. And the city council won't allow it due to the hazards involved, said Wired. "'It's a little like looking at your bank account containing millions of dollars but not being able to spend it,'" Howells told Wired. The Tragedy of Lost Cryptocurrency Howells' story isn't unique. Wired also published the tale of Mark Frauenfelder — director of research at the Institute of the Future's Blockchain Futures Lab — who nearly lost a fortune. He bought 7.4 bitcoins in early 2016, stored the bitcoin keys in an encrypted drive and then forgot the PIN. It took him many tries and a lot of hacking to recover it, and now he's exponentially richer. A recent study by Chainalysis found that between 2.7 million and 3.7 million bitcoins — about 17 percent to 23 percent of the total supply — have been lost forever, according to Fortune. At the current bitcoin exchange rate at the time this article was written, with one bitcoin worth about $16,200, that represents $43.7 to 59.9 billion of lost value. Lost cryptocurrency isn't limited to bitcoin, either. Earlier this year, an unlucky user accidentally destroyed more than $300 million worth of Ether — the currency used for the decentralized platform Ethereum. The developer Parity revealed that it had tried to fix a bug that allowed hackers to steal $32 million from digital wallets, but inadvertently created a second bug that let one user become the owner of all the digital wallets. In an attempt to fix this mistake, the assets were effectively locked with no feasible way to access them.    Safeguarding Digital Assets Digital currency users face several threats, but a common mistake is not protecting cryptocurrency from hackers. That's not surprising considering large-scale hacks, such as the disappearance of what was nearly half a billion dollars worth of bitcoin from Mt. Gox in 2014. Losing access to your cryptocurrency is a potential threat as well. It's important to realize that you're responsible for the security of your digital assets. To avoid the scenario of lost cryptocurrency, here are some do's and dont's to consider, some of which came from the technology-focused website Di9it:  Don't keep a large volume of coins on an exchange you don't actively trade on, as that could expose you to the danger of theft. The same applies to digital wallets on your phone or computer. Don't ever share your private key with anyone or store it on an unencrypted device. Do use a cold wallet, such as a USB drive or other storage, to maintain a reserve of your currency offline. Do keep a copy of your PIN — as well as reminder words and numbers in case you lose the PIN — in a safe place. You should also consider keeping a backup copy in a fireproof safe or other storage. Do encrypt your laptop, phone and other mobile devices containing personal information, especially passwords related to your assets. Losing them could be disastrous. Do exercise caution with little-known cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and messages soliciting investment. Taking a few basic steps like these can improve your digital hygiene and go a long way to making the cryptocurrency ecosystem a safer place. By sharing best practices, we can make cryptocurrency a secure store of value.

Lost Cryptocurrency? How to Prevent your Digital Cash from Disappearing

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, time counts.From the opening scene of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster movie Dunkirk the pressure of time is omnipresent. The sound of a ticking watch... tick-tock, tick-tock, grabs you in the chest, and it quickens your heart. Through the movie's remaining 107 minutes, the sound of the ticking watch subsides at points, but listen very closely and it's still there. Accompanying Hans Zimmer's score the persistent tick-tock of passing time is everywhere — it's the driving beat. It's the ever-present reminder that in battle, time is always in command.Zimmer accentuated the endless tick-tock with a Shepard Tone, a musical illusion representing a constantly ascending pitch. It reminds our subconscious selves that not only is time the driving force, but it's winnowing and getting more critical by the minute, the step, and the note.Time was running out at Dunkirk in 1940 when the German war machine threatened to tighten its grip around the desperate forces of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and France.Time was just as pivotal two years later when the US Navy took on the Japanese Imperial Fleet at the Battle of Midway in the most significant battle of the War in the Pacific.Both Dunkirk and Midway are telling illustrations of the impact of time in conflict. At Dunkirk, the Germans chose to halt their advance on the port for three days to consolidate, to avoid an Allied breakout. That precious time made it possible for the remarkable exploits portrayed so evocatively in Dunkirk.At the Battle of Midway it was technology, rather than a hesitation, that gave the US Navy the elixir of time. For example, newly developed radar gave the US aircraft carriers the ability to see 100 miles in all weather conditions compared to the older binoculars used by the Japanese that had a range of 20 miles, and only in the best of weather. That early radar technology gave the USN precious extra time to prepare for incoming aircraft. This, and other technological advances, coupled with—first and foremost—the military exploits of USN servicemen, resulted in the loss of four Japanese aircraft carriers. The Imperial Navy would never recover from that blow.Leap forward 75 years and in 2017 digital transformation is making speed and time more important still.To win in the digital battle space, our forces must act at a faster tempo than their adversaries; as US military strategist John Boyd has suggested, they must get inside their adversaries' Observe-Orient-Decide-Act loop. Doing so will make the US and its allies unpredictable, it will generate confusion and disorder among adversaries. Northrop Grumman (NG) is committed to ensuring our forces maintain a decisive advantage by providing them with mission systems that harness the disruptive force of digital transformation. The engineers at NG are developing advanced software-defined, hardware enabled mission systems that operate at previously unimaginable speeds. These integrated, agile and interoperable C4ISR systems will provide critical decision-making intelligence and allow defense forces to sense, share, collaborate, and act with greater speed and confidence.The three heart-quickening stories told in Dunkirk operate on time scales of a week, a day and an hour. In the stories told of future conflict those will seem like luxuriously relaxed paces. Tomorrow's battles will be won and lost in seconds, microseconds and nanoseconds. Tomorrow's digital battles will be fought in the now cavernous space between tick and tock. Learn how you can be apart of them!

How 'Dunkirk' Started the Digital Transformation of Warfare

Perhaps it was someone's dark sense of humor, but whoever created the acronym 'C4ISR' surely did so with a wry smile. As an acronym, it almost single-handedly makes the case that defense and security agencies have an unhealthy appetite for unsightly abbreviations. It's hard to disagree that acronyms can be obstacles to clear communication, especially those that combine letters and numbers, and it is a doozy. Let's start though by acknowledging that acronyms serve a useful purpose; without them we'd repeat ourselves ... a lot! Acronyms can be valuable shorthand for complex and important constructs or concepts.  C4ISR is a terrific example of where an acronym helps avoid repetition. After all, who wants to say Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance more times that you must? 'C4ISR' helps us put together arguably the most important elements of the infrastructure of global national security into a single, memorable term. While it's easy to remember the acronym— after all, we do tend to remember awkward terms — it's not as easy to recall, or even agree, what it means precisely. There's a danger that, as it comes to mean many things to many people, it won't have one common meaning to anyone. We should all understand, in broad and easily-shared terms, the value of the capabilities encapsulated in C4ISR. Ron 'Squeek' Henry, Strategy Manager, Airborne C4ISR Division at Northrop Grumman has a simple definition. "C4ISR is about gaining decision superiority to enable mission success." More specifically, Squeek defines C4ISR as the network of platforms, sensors, communications nodes, and decision aids which connects systems to operators.  This networked web seamlessly operates across domains, fuses data, adapts and evolves with the mission, while ensuring high speed, decision quality data to the operator at the tactical edge he says. "It's the web that joins platforms, payloads, sensors and people."  Imagine a world where you can mobilize a response team before a disaster fully unfolds, or send military intelligence in real time to help save soldiers' lives and ensure mission success. You don't need to imagine it: Today C4ISR is helping solve the world's toughest security challenges through groundbreaking software and highly advanced technology.  "The key to effective C4ISR is optimizing the functionality, synchronization and interoperability of land, sea, air, cyber and space systems to rapidly turn data, non-kinetic effects and intelligence into mission-winning action with superior tactical battle management," Squeek said. "It's about providing a decisive advantage to the warfighter," he added. It may be an ugly acronym, but C4ISR systems provide critical decision-making intelligence and allow security forces to sense, share, collaborate and act with greater speed and assurance, and that's a beautiful thing.  If you want to learn more abour Northrop Grumman's C4ISR technology check it out here.

C4ISR: An Ugly Acronym for a Key to Global Security

Many large-scale public events are all about dealing with crowds of people, and that brings with it the logistics of event security. The larger the crowds, often the larger the security headaches. Fortunately, event planners can now call upon a powerful new security technology for dealing with crowds: facial recognition security.
What's in a Face?
Human beings are pretty good at recognizing faces. We can immediately recognize people we haven't seen for decades, and our ability to perceive the individuality of faces is a powerful metaphor for the individuality of people. But as with other pattern-recognition tasks, devising algorithms that allow computers to match this human capability has been challenging.
According to research from Utah State University, efforts to apply computer technology to human facial recognition began as early as the 1960s, when the RAND tablet was devised for users to manually record the relative coordinate positions of facial features. Faces, like fingerprints, are all slightly different. With sufficient measurement data and number-crunching capability, these differences can be teased out numerically.
Facial images can then be recognized as similar, including images with measured similarity so great that they can only be a match, like two images of the same face. By the early 1990s, researchers had also devised ways to recognize the presence of a face in an image — a key development. In 2001, facial recognition security was deployed for crime control at a public event: the 2001 Super Bowl.
Marketing and Moods
Softjourn reports that typical use cases for facial recognition technology in event management range from backstage access control for staff and other authorized users to general identification checks, finding missing persons, gathering data on attendance and other use cases for future event optimization. These use cases, like the ones for many other security technologies, run the gamut in terms of public perception.
On the one hand, authorized access control for staff areas does not impinge on the general public attending the event, since they have no expectation of access to those areas. At the same time, the public is highly understanding of missing-person situations and welcomes any intervention that reunites people with their parties. On the other hand, obtaining general identification information (which would be needed for the missing-person scenario, for example) is necessarily more intrusive to the public.
While collecting data for use in improving future events seems benign from the event planner's perspective, this type of data collection may not sit well with attendees. The Utah State University study examined user perceptions of a range of scenarios involving facial recognition data. Their results showed discomfort regarding the use of facial recognition technology for marketing messages. In particular, in a scenario where they did not explain how the facial recognition data would be used, participants reported discomfort of being tracked with it in a public gathering.
As interest and awareness of facial recognition technology has grown, so has concern, with organizations such as The Public Voice calling for a moratorium on the public use of the technology. This backlash is tied to some real-world limitations of the technology. Facial recognition systems are ""trained"" on images, and the training images often reflect the mix of people you find around software labs. As the Utah study noted, for example, white male faces drew a much lower error rate than female faces of color did.
In another aspect of the technology, Converve notes that the capability of facial recognition technology to provide ""mood detection"" takes concerns about privacy to a new level: Even if it is reliable, is it appropriate? On a more immediate level, event planners must also be mindful of the E.U.'s General Data Protection Regulation, which incorporates stronger privacy protections than current U.S. legal frameworks.
Using Powerful Tools Wisely
Likewise, the Professional Convention Management Association takes note of some critical security questions that event planners should ask about facial recognition security: ""Where is your face data stored? Who else can access it? What else will it be used for? How are these companies remaining GDPR compliant? With so many questions regarding privacy, it's important for organizers to create opt-in opportunities that give guests a sense of control.""
For event planners, facial recognition can be a powerful addition to the security technology toolkit. They must be aware of the limitations, though, as well as the capabilities of this technology, while being acutely aware of the possible public reactions to new security technology. As such, it will be vital to clearly explain how and why it is being used.
 
Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Learn more about life at Northrop Grumman, and check out our career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering.

Event Security Technology Goes Face to Face

  To encrypt a message is to convert it into a form that only authorized recipients can understand, even if it falls into unauthorized hands. (Converting a message back to readable form is called decryption.) As Margaret Rouse reports at Techtarget, the idea of encryption goes back to ancient times, but until recently it was of practical concern almost exclusively to the military and national intelligence agencies. But the growth of the internet, and the enormous role it now plays in business and our daily lives, has changed all that. Encryption of internet traffic has now become a major concern for practically everyone. In the process it has also raised complex new issues, such as how to balance the needs of individual online security and privacy with those of national security. Codes and Ciphers In everyday language it is common to say that any encrypted message is "in code," but in fact there are two quite different basic ways to encrypt a message: codes and ciphers. A code substitutes harmless words for the critical words in a message. So, for example, "send flowers" might mean launch airstrikes. Codes can be very hard to break, because there is no formula that will reveal the true message. But they are limited because you cannot encode a message that is not already provided in the code book. A cipher, in contrast, applies a formula, called an encryption key, to each individual character — letter, punctuation mark and so forth — in a message in order to encrypt it. A reverse formula, or decryption key, is used to decrypt the message. The formula can potentially be "broken" — allowing unauthorized people to read the message. But the advantage of a cipher over a code is that any message can be encrypted. Sender and recipient don't need to agree in advance on specific code words, but only the encryption and decryption keys. Computer encryption systems are based on ciphers, and a whole branch of mathematics has developed around the techniques for creating ciphers that are difficult to break. Modern encryption systems typically have a "public key," available to anyone, that can be used to encrypt a message, along with a "private key" — provided only to authorized persons — which is used to decrypt a message. Thus, anyone can send you an encrypted message by using your public key, but only people you entrust with your private key can read those messages. But why has this type of encryption technology become important to everyone, not just military commanders or secret agents? A World Without Envelopes Before the rise of the internet, most messages were fairly difficult to intercept. Most letters were sent by mail, sealed in envelopes. Simply getting hold of a letter not meant for you was fairly difficult, and opening the envelope in a way that it could be resealed (to hide the fact that someone unauthorized had read it) was also difficult. Phone calls aren't concealed by envelopes, but tapping an old-fashioned phone call was also a difficult process. In contrast, the same technology that makes the internet fast and reliable also makes internet messages easy for almost anyone to read. Internet messages are sent as "packets" of data that are electronically passed from one internet computer (a "server") to the next, until they reach their destination. A variety of tools can allow hackers — such as cybercriminals or hostile intelligence agencies — to intercept data packets en route. Anyone who intercepts it can examine the data, bit by bit. This applies to your personal email and credit card number. Indeed, it applies to anything and everything sent through the internet. Which means that the only way to keep hackers from reading your email or financial data is to encrypt it. Thus, as Robert A. Grimes notes at Infoworld, the call for universal "end to end" encryption on the internet. Northrop Grumman has worked with secure communications for decades, going back before anyone ever heard of the internet. The need to encrypt messages is not new to Northrop Grumman, but it remains on the forefront of encryption technology.