Air Force networks “face a continuous barrage of assaults” from state-sponsored actors, terror networks, international criminal organizations, individual hackers, and assorted threats in between, said Stephen Walker, USAF’s assistant secretary for science, technology, and engineering. Accordingly, the service is pursuing multiple research efforts to address cyberspace vulnerabilities, he said. Among them, “We’re looking at what we call cyber agility, which is having networks move and not be an [Internet Protocol] address longer than a fraction of a second, so it is very hard for the attacker to find out where you are,” said Walker in testimony this week before the House Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities panel. Air Force researchers are also working “cyber security issues for cloud computing” to ensure that “data in the cloud” is secure, he said. (See also Walker’s prepared remarks)
The rate of building B-21 bombers would speed up if the fiscal 2026 defense budget passes. But it remains unclear how much capacity would be added, and whether the Air Force would simply build the bombers faster, or buy more.
