The Air Force needs to look at different ways to protect, resource, and design its network so that officials can accelerate the process of adding and utilizing new technology, said Lt. Gen. Bill Lord, chief of warfighting integration in the Air Force Secretariat. Speaking last week at AFA’s CyberFutures Conference just outside of Washington, D.C., Lord said he wants to see the service become “device agnostic.” In other words, that means the ability for government-issued Blackberries, iPhones, and other types of devices to work off of the same network without experiencing any compatibility issues. However, he cautioned that 24th Air Force at Lackland AFB, Tex., the Air Force’s cyber operations arm, is a “small crowd and can be quickly overloaded” with the onslaught of new technology. “There is huge pressure to bring devices onto the network, but then we have to be able to manage those devices,” Lord said.
Collaborative Combat Aircraft designs from Anduril and General Atomics passed their critical design reviews early in November, clearing the way for detailed production efforts to get underway, the Air Force said. How future versions will be upgraded is still under discussion.