The Army Cyber Command is increasing its focus on defending facilities and infrastructures that play a vital role in military installations, Fifth Domain reported Friday. The command wants to transition cyber teams from tasks focused on threat actors, defense and incident response to responsibilities to protect industrial control systems and supervisory control and data acquisition.

“Over the last four or five years, as we’ve gotten repetitions responding to incident responses, we’ve really identified where the most likely opportunities that the [Cyber Protection Brigade] will be called to respond and react to. One of those huge areas is ICS-SCADA networks,” said Lt. Col. Michael Smith, S-3 operations officer at the brigade. 

He said the Army is trying to understand all facilities that support military installations, from water to electric, to see the potential impact of a successful cyber attack. The Army cyber teams are also considering commercial environments and infrastructures that support military installations. 

However, Greg Touhill, former federal chief information security officer, said in 2018 that such a move would require specialized expertise.

“At each base there is so much stuff, I don’t believe at this point that cyber protection teams could parachute in effectively,” he said. “You almost have to have a tailored approach for each installation.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold an annual event intending to grow the creation of a secure, specialized and autonomous electronics industry. The Electronics Resurgence Initiative Summit seeks to gather the electronics sector and provide organizations an avenue to assess technical progress, demonstrate their technologies and share their inputs for potential research pathways, DARPA said Friday.

Scheduled from July 15 through 17, this year’s event will support ongoing research partnerships, provide opportunities, discuss potential effects of advanced electronics and present the technical outcome of ERI initiatives.

Confirmed speakers for the summit include Steve Mollenkopf, CEO at Qualcomm, John Kelly III, executive vice president at IBM and Lisa Su, president and CEO at AMD.

The summit is open to the public and interested media attendees may submit their email applications to DARPA.

Adam Hickey, deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice, told Federal News Network in an interview published Friday that DOJ is ramping up its efforts to recruit lawyers with background in modern technologies amid the increasing cyber threats facing the federal government.

“So we are seeing many younger attorneys who are coming on board having had, if not a background in computer science, or at least some greater technical fluency because of their own experience, their personal life,” Hickey said on the network’s Agency in Focus: Justice Department segment.Â

He cited the potential benefit to lawyers of collaborating with agents with training in computer science.

“We aggressively recruit for folks who have that background, but not having had it myself, I’ll also tell you, there’s no substitute for working closely with some top agents at the bureau and learning the technology and learning how to investigate an intrusion case by working side by side with the agents that do have that computer science training,” Hickey noted.

Hickey mentioned that DOJ advances cross-training initiatives to better address cyber espionage.

Jon Darby, director of operations at the National Security Agency, said China’s potential use of 5G technology for cyber warfare could be a cause for concern for U.S. networks, the Washington Business Journal reported Friday. “It’s not about a smoking gun — it’s about a loaded gun,” Darby said of cyber vulnerabilities associated with China’s 5G networks.

“If you look at what 5G offers in terms of capabilities, there’s a lot of power in that particular technology,” Darby said Thursday during the University of Maryland Cybersecurity Executive Summit. “I think it’s more about that connection: a government entity that’s hostile or has [aims] that are different than the United States, and a record of acting that way. Why would we give them that capability or make it easy?”

Darby noted there are ongoing talks about the development of a “whole of government strategy” for 5G networks as some U.S. allies continue allowing Chinese telecommunications firms like Huawei Technologies to compete for 5G spectrum contracts.

Elbit Systems of America, the U.S. subsidiary of Elbit Systems Ltd., announced on Friday that it signed an agreement with the Harris Corporation to acquire Harris Night Vision business for $350 million. The transaction is conditioned upon completion of the proposed merger between Harris and L3 Technologies, Inc., customary closing conditions, which includes a receipt of all regulatory approvals.

“The market position and technological strength of Harris Night Vision make this acquisition significant to our long-term growth strategy with a particular focus on the U.S. Elbit Systems of America which has a proven track record of providing high performance solutions and support services to the U.S. defense and homeland security markets,” said Bezhalel Machlis, president and CEO of Elbit Systems.

Harris has led the industry for over 50 years. Warfighters in the U.S. and globally rely on Harris premier night vision and image intensifier technologies for enhanced threat detection and mission performance. The company produces more night vision devices than its competitors combined and continues working with customers to advance night vision and vision-enhancing capabilities, technologies and performance.

The Harris F5032 Lightweight Night Vision Binocular is the latest innovation in the field to answer the challenges of size, weight and power while also increasing warfighters’ low-light capabilities and introducing the industry’s leading close focus range giving soldiers superior near eye clarity.

About Harris Corporation

Harris Corporation is a leading technology innovator, solving customers’ toughest mission-critical challenges by providing solutions that connect, inform and protect. Harris supports government and commercial customers in more than 100 countries and has approximately $6 billion in annual revenue. The company is organized into three business segments: Communication Systems, Electronic Systems and Space and Intelligence Systems.

About Elbit Systems

Elbit Systems Ltd. is an international high technology company engaged in a wide range of defense, homeland security and commercial programs throughout the world.

The company, which includes Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, operates in the areas of aerospace, land, and naval systems, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance (“C4ISR”), unmanned aircraft systems, advanced electro-optics, electro-optic space systems, EW suites, signal intelligence systems, data links and communications systems, radios and cyber-based systems and munitions.

The company also focuses on the upgrading of existing platforms, developing new technologies for defense, homeland security and commercial applications and providing a range of support services, including training and simulation systems.

The Naval Research Laboratory aims to use artificial intelligence to predict when an employee is likely to leave the federal government. The plan comes as the Trump Administration wants to introduce the safe use of AI among the federal workforce, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

Ranjeev Mittu, head of information management and decision architectures at the laboratory’s information technology division, said the lab seeks AI tools that can analyze data from exit surveys and review common workplace issues.

“As employees are progressing in their career, we can look at the predictors. Do those predictors tell us we might have an employee that is going to leave? Should we fix a problem because a lot of employees are leaving for a given problem that no one’s addressed? I think there’s a rich opportunity not just to apply machine learning, but a variety of approaches under AI to solve this kind of problem,” he said. 

Mittu said one naval command is already utilizing AI-based technologies to reduce time spent on manual tasks, like copying data from one spreadsheet to another. Some tasks that once required three weeks are now being done in four days.

“It allowed this analyst to focus on other problems within the command,” he said.