May 16, 2008

U.S. DoD: Offensive Computing and Cyber Warfare

To quote the infamous Cypher, "All I see now is, blonde, brunette, redhead".

The United States Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER) is due to "stand up" and begin operations on October 1, 2008. There is a lot of attention being paid to the cyber space realm as a means of warfare, more so than the average person would know about. Denial of service and cyber espionage are in common use by most modern governments these days. It pleases me to no end that the United States is gearing up to make things happen in this battle space.

The Air Force Cyber Command, U.S. Navy Network Warfare Command and The U.S. Army's "Joint Functional Component Command Network Warfare" are well on their way to insure America is a Superpower in Cyber Space.

That being said, I recently saw a contract placed up for bid by the U.S. DoD that I found interesting.

It appears, that AFCYBER is accepting bids from interested parties to assist it in establishing it's offensive computing capability.

Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement and Supporting Technology
Solicitation Number: BAA-08-04-RIKA
Agency: Department of the Air Force
Office: Air Force Materiel Command
Location: AFRL - Rome Research Site

I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION:
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)/RI is soliciting white papers for various scientific studies and experiments to increase our knowledge and understanding of the broad range of capabilities required in support of Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement and Supporting Technology, to include testing of prototype capabilities. Solutions to basic and applied research and engineering for the problems relating to Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement and Supporting Technology are sought. This includes high risk, high payoff capabilities for gaining access to any remotely located open or closed computer information systems; these systems enabling full control of a network for the purposes of information gathering and effects based operations. Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms. Robust methodologies to enable access to any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware are of interest. Also, we are interested in technology to provide the capability to maintain an active presence within the adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected. Of interest are any and all techniques to enable stealth and persistence capabilities on an adversaries infrastructure. This could be a combination of hardware and/or software focused development efforts.

Following this, it is desired to have the capability to stealthily exfiltrate information from any remotely-located open or closed computer information systems with the possibility to discover information with previously unknown existence. Any and all techniques to enable exfiltration techniques on both fixed and mobile computing platforms are of interest. Consideration should be given to maintaining a "low and slow" gathering paradigm in these development efforts to enable stealthy operation. Finally, this BAA's objective includes the capability to provide a variety of techniques and technologies to be able to affect computer information systems through Deceive, Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, Destroy (D5) effects. Of interest are any and all techniques including enabling D5 effects to computers and their networks; integration of effects with Access, Stealth and Persistence and Cybint capabilities; command and control of effects; and determining effects' link to operational impact. In addition to these main concepts, we desire to have research efforts in the supporting areas including (but not limited to): Information Assurance through Flattened Computer Architectures in special application/user environments; NGPSec: Secure Next Generation Protocol Suite to investigate feasibility and determine whether reinventing the network protocol stack can be done and the resulting success quantified; Proactive Botnet Defense Technology Development specifically as applies to new ideas/concepts for practical application; Carbon nanotubes for high density interconnects and RF applications, to allow for incorporating novel IA designs into computer architectures through nanotube interconnects with nanotube based RF peripherals (antennas).

I've got your "Cyber Jihad" right here.