Military intelligence and data security
As part of today’s armory in military operations worldwide, unmanned aerial systems have become a vital tool in gathering aerial surveillance and identifying combat targets. But to be successfully used, this tool needs to be protected.
Based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, United States, the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations Centers Support (UASOCS) supports missions in regions including the Middle East for the U.S. Department of Defense, NATO and allied nations. It operates, secures and maintains communications systems for remotely piloted aircraft in combat air patrols and provides intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data to senior military leaders.
As part of the system’s impressive security credentials, unauthorized access and cyberattacks are prevented by weekly scans, maintaining awareness of the newest viruses and malware, installing more than 100 new product updates and security patches each month, and keeping track of users and disabling unused accounts. These tools detect and prohibit suspicious users and devices, and protect remotely piloted aircraft operations as well as routine communications across a host of classified and unclassified networks.
Because the data is often used to inform crucial, time-critical decisions, AECOM built the communications systems to be robust and reliable — providing command-and-control links for ground-level operators and full-motion, near-real-time video that are available 99.998 percent of the time.
“As the use of these aircraft has increased, UASOCS has developed its capabilities to support burgeoning aircraft technologies and secure the data collected,” says a spokesperson for AECOM, which has operated UASOCS since 2010. In 2015, AECOM was awarded a new contract to run the program for up to seven more years. “We scan the network for vulnerabilities and then use the other tools to mitigate them. Our task is to make sure the military has everything it needs to supply aircraft data to those who need to act on it.”
As remote aircraft operations increase, UASOCS expects to expand operations in coming years from Creech and into other locations to provide more robust network capability. In an effort to increase system reliability even further, it also plans to incorporate virtual server technology to add redundancy, and enable instant replacement and backing up of damaged rack-mounted servers.
