GVSC Cyber Cyclone Demonstrates Ground Vehicle Cyber Resiliency

DETROIT ARSENAL, MI, UNITED STATES

02.01.2022

Story by Jerome Aliotta 

DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center

Existing technologies used on Army ground vehicle systems were not designed with current cyber threats in mind. As a result, they are not resilient against cyber-attacks and will be vulnerable in a cyber-contested battlespace. Cybersecurity threats continue to grow and the threat is constantly evolving. The importance of cyber defensive technologies in ground systems is critical to the security and integrity of both legacy systems and future ground systems, both manned and unmanned, to ensure safety and security to warfighters.

The U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) Ground Systems Cyber Engineering (GSCE) Directorate leads a Science and Technology initiative titled “Vehicle Systems Security” (VSS). The goal of VSS is to develop military ground vehicle cyber defensive technologies, ensuring the vehicle will operate in near peer cyber-contested environments, without the risk of critical vehicle systems being shut-down or subverted by adversaries, thus maintaining positive control of vehicle operation. VSS supports the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) Cross Functional Team (CFT). NGCV CFT is the lead organization for one of six Army modernization priorities.

Developed under VSS, the MIL-STD-1553 Bus Defender is an Intrusion Defense and Prevention System (IDPS), that’s capable of detecting, logging, mitigating and defending against cyber threats to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the vehicle’s internal data bus network. GVSC and Peraton Labs partnered to further develop and mature the Bus Defender for Army vehicles. The research and development initiative covered several phases focused on the Analysis and Design, Physical Prototype Design, and Prototype Demonstration and Integration of the technology.

During each phase, the Bus Defender was successfully demonstrated several times in a military platform in January 2019 and August 2020, which ultimately achieved all of the required performance metrics and requirements within the scope of the effort. NGCV CFT requested that the GVSC GSCE team assess this cyber capability in an operationally relevant environment.

“The goal of Cyber Cyclone was to demonstrate cyber resiliency and survivability by detecting, logging, mitigating, and defending against remotely triggered simulated cyber threats to a ground combat systems data bus from various distances, while simultaneously collecting data for forensic analysis,” says Mustafa Hamood, Project Lead Cyber Cyclone, GVSC Ground Systems Cyber Engineering.

During the Cyber Cyclone, operational adversarial assessments were conducted to demonstrate how remotely triggered simulated cyber-attacks from near-peer adversaries, or similar, can pose significant threats to the system. The same attacks were then launched with the cyber defensive technology integrated, which successfully defended against the threats, while maintaining full functionality and availiabity of the system. The Cyber Cyclone demonstrated the need for robust cyber defensive technologies in legacy and future ground vehicle systems’ data buses in order to ensure cyber survivability and augment force protection.

“We wouldn’t have been successful without our industry and government partners during this assessment, says Daniel Newport, Branch Chief, GVSC Ground Systems Cyber Engineering.”

GVSC, along with government partners, Yuma Test Center, Threat Systems Management Office, industry partners Peraton Labs, and General Dynamics Land Systems, successfully demonstrated Cyber Cyclone on September 14-15, 2021, at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.

• Date Taken: 02.01.2022
• Date Posted: 02.04.2022 12:05
• Story ID: 413996
• Location: DETROIT ARSENAL, MI, US