Critical infrastructure such as water, electricity, and sewer on most Air Force bases is highly vulnerable to cyber attack, Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, USAF’s top uniformed cyber officer, told House lawmakers in testimony Thursday. “Right now, those systems are very much wide open,” said Webber. He added, “We haven’t even taken the low-hanging fruit steps” to address this issue. In most cases, off-site, private entities provide these utilities, said Webber. The Air Force is, however, working with the National Laboratory to identify infrastructure vulnerabilities in order to understand the infrastructure networks better, he said. The Navy faces the same issue. “A lot of this [infrastructure] is single source into a base,” explained Vice Adm. Bernard McCullough, Fleet Cyber Command boss. He continued, “If you take that capacity away, you have some capability on backup power generation, but very little in other resources.” (Webber’s prepared remarks)
The Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
