U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter took the podium and laid out the problem for the Silicon Valley crowd.
“The same Internet that enables Wikipedia also allows terrorists to learn how to build a bomb,” Carter said in an April 23 lecture at Stanford University. “And the same technologies we use to target cruise missiles and jam enemy air defenses can be used against our own forces – and they’re now available to the highest bidder.”
The speech, in which Carter called for a “renewed partnership” between military and civilian tech innovators, underscored the global need for defense-grade cybersecurity. With that demand stronger than ever, Raytheon is recasting the common military concept of C4ISR – command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance – to emphasize a fifth "C," cyber. Experts from Raytheon will inform international defense delegations about the company’s C5I approach at the Paris Air Show, stressing that cyber defense is as essential as knowing what’s in the battlefield, making quick decisions and directing their forces.
“In a contested cyber domain, we have to ensure decision-makers can continue to collect timely, critical information and take action, even while under cyber attack,” said Ryan Walters, the chief C5I engineer for Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services.
C5I systems gather intelligence from traditional sources such as UAVs, satellites, signals, sensors and soldiers in the field, but they also evaluate threats from cyberspace. Cyber resiliency – the ability to withstand and recover from an attack – is embedded into the C5I framework, starting from the security of the system’s suppliers and components to the architecture and software.
“We need to be thinking cyber throughout the life cycle of the system, from beginning, middle and, no, not to the end, but continuously,” said Chuck Taylor, director of international command-and-control systems for Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business. “With growing and evolving cyber threats, our systems have to be adaptable, staying a step ahead of our adversaries.
With decades of experience in radars, sensors, communications and navigation systems, Raytheon has combined proven technologies to create new, customizable ways of observing, responding and assessing any situation.
“As master integrators, Raytheon can deliver to its customers … a cyber-resilient end-to-end solution from national to tactical that allows for quick decisionmaking at any echelon,” Taylor said.
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