Shared situational awareness is the key to building combatant commanders’ confidence in US Cyber Command, Maj. Gen. David Senty, CYBERCOM chief of staff, said at AFA’s CyberFutures Conference last week. “Only through shared situational awareness” will commanders come to understand the extent to which the Defense Department’s newest command is going in order “to execute the things that are necessary for their operational plans,” he said. With the onslaught of smart data and data tagging filling up the cloud architecture, it’s imperative that cyber operators are able to determine where the information has been and where it came from so that they can figure out what information can and should be shared, Senty said. “Key terrain and command and control is something [about which] we are in constant discussion with our service components and the Cocoms and [Defense Department] policy [officials] because of the need to address the speed of cyber and the fact that we can touch anything from anywhere,” he 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.