Air Force RFI: Defensive Cyber Operations for Space

Notice ID 24-28

The USSF is leading the effort in defensive cyber operations and continues to codify command and control (C2) roles and responsibilities to facilitate rapid identification / reporting / response of anomalous cyber activity within the space enterprise and integrate threat-based intelligence at all operational levels. In 2016, the Air Force directed the stand-up of the Cyber Squadron Initiative, and Air Force Space Command’s 50th and 460th Space Wings were among the Air Force’s first to field Mission Defense Teams to provide persistent defense with 24/7 DCO capability. The effort continues to scale across USSF through Space Delta 6’s cyber squadrons, equipped with an enterprise level DCO-S suite of tools. In addition to executing the DCO-S mission, space cyber squadron operators provide the feedback necessary to continuously evolve that suite of tools to counter sophisticated, determined, and persistent adversarial threats against the USSF space enterprise in, through and from the cyberspace domain.

The Space Systems Center Enterprise Cross-mission Ground’s Defensive Cyber Operations for Space Branch (SSC/SZYO) is designated as the responsible office to provide enterprise level DCO capability to the Space Enterprise. To accomplish the mission, SSC/SZYO contracted with multiple vendors to prototype key defensive cyber features, through prototype OTA awards under the Space Enterprise Consortium base agreement. SZYO now requires a single vendor to produce and enhance these features on a production scale that will:

• Deliver space enterprise protection and threat detection, identification, protection, and response capabilities.
• Continuously integrate and develop Manticore and Kraken to accommodate EGS and future space systems.
• Provide operationally relevant cyberspace capabilities with Manticore and Kraken through iterative development to meet mission needs today.

Manticore is an out-of-band defensive cyber solution designed to provide enterprise-level cyber “Identify and Detect” capabilities for USSF legacy and future Space Mission Systems. Manticore duplicates data and analyzes the data passively with no ability to impact mission data or mission systems in real time.

Kraken is an in-band defensive cyber solution that provides enterprise-level cyber “Protect/Respond” capabilities for USSF legacy and future space mission systems.  Ultimately, this allows data and mission systems to have real time ability to demonstrate “active” defense against cyber threats.

More here.

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