ESC to host Cyber Control System Industry Day next week

  • Published
  • By Chuck Paone
  • 66th Air Base wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, Mass. --  The Electronic Systems Center, in conjunction with Air Force Cyber Command (Provisional) and the Air Force Communications Agency, will convene a two-day session next week to solicit industry feedback on plans for developing new cyber control capabilities.

The industry 'day,' which will be held here Jan. 29 and 30, will focus on meeting the requirement to command and control the Air Force portion of the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. Industry response has been very high so far, with more than 80 companies signed up to attend. Those that have identified themselves as prime contractor candidates and provided comments to the Web-posted Systems Requirements Document and Concept of Operations will be given one-hour blocks to discuss their thoughts on the project.

"We may have to extend it out another day, if we keep getting more interest," said Vince Ross, program manager for the Cyber Control System, referred to as CCS, and deputy program manager for the Combat Information Transport System. The CITS program is comprised of information transport and network management and network defense, which is where CCS will play a major role.

CCS will enable active defense operations and facilitate offensive operations by providing strategic situational awareness, according to Col. Leslie Blackham, commander of ESC's 753rd Electronic Systems Group, which on Jan. 1 began managing the program previously run by the 653 ELSG. The system, to be developed in spirals, will in its earliest phase be able to detect patterns and give operators within the Air Force Network Operations Center near-real-time information about any suspected network disturbances.

"It will also provide a means to transfer that information to kinetic and non-kinetic war fighters and decision makers, and it will integrate with existing command and control systems that allow us to carry out response actions," Colonel Blackham said. "We're asking our industry partners to help us with the details, to help develop a reasonable, incremental approach to fielding capabilities within prescribed time and budget constraints."

The Air Force has provided $7 million for CCS this fiscal year, which means an initial spiral should be up and running and available for testing by late September, according to Mr. Ross. He added that he hopes to be able to publish a request for proposals by March and move quickly forward from there.

An additional $20 million dollars have been programmed for Fiscal Year '09, when work on additional increments would begin. Future phase efforts will add automated response features based on pre-defined rules of engagement and recommended courses of action for responding to cyber performance degradations, equipment failures, intrusions and attacks.

Even then the system will only be part of a much larger network defense picture, Mr. Ross said. It will provide critical information about the domain to air battle planners, who will determine how best to use the information and how to respond to attacks.

The CCS is an informational tool, and not itself part of "any offensive arsenal," he said.

"It's important to keep in mind that CCS will provide one piece of the total cyber domain dominance vision," Colonel Blackham said. "There are a lot of things to consider in order to make that vision a reality, and a lot of work to be done. CCS is a critical, foundational step in the right direction, and we're looking forward to getting the feedback we need from industry, so we can move forward with this."