16th Air Force established as cyberwarfare unit

The newest numbered air force, the 16th Air Force, dedicated to cyberwarfare, has been established in a ceremony at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.

Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh assumed command in a ceremony on Oct.11. The 24th and 25th Air Forces were inactivated and integrated into the new force, the Air Force announced this week.

The "16th Air Force (Air Forces Cyber)," created in March by the U.S. Air Force, is now the single headquarters for global intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber, electronic warfare and information operations.

It encompasses wings dedicated to reconnaissance, aircraft, cyberspace and intelligence, as well as the Air Force Technical Applications Center, and the involvement of 32,000 Air Force personnel and civilians.

"This is an important and historic day for our Air Force... the stand-up of the 16th Air Force as an information warfare-focused numbered air force," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein. "Today's ceremony isn't just about pulling organizations together, it is creating opportunity for new operational art to compete against transregional, all-domain and multifunctional challenges and conduct operations in the information environment."

As a "numbered air force," the new organization takes the name of the group involved with the Strategic Air Command in the 1950s and inactivated in 2014.

The 16th Air Force is charged with operating, maintaining and defending the branch's information networks, as well as direction mission critical cyber terrain, provides multisource intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance products. The command will also serve as the service cryptologic component working with the National Security Agency and Central Security Service for other Air Force-related cryptologic activities.

BAE Systems to manage open source data for U.S. Army in $437M contract
Washington (UPI) Oct 16, 2019 - BAE Systems will provide intelligence support to the U.S. Army in a $437 million task order, the company announced.

BAE Systems will deliver open source capabilities to the Army from publicly available sources, and will provide the Army's Intelligence and Security Command with training, policy and governance recommendations, assessments and implementation of emerging capabilities.

A secure cloud hosting environment will also be established by the company to accomplish the work.

The task order, announced on Tuesday, is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract awarded under the U.S. General Services Administration's One Acquisition Solution program. The acquisition was managed by GSA's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center on behalf of the Army.

"We're proud to continue to partner with the U.S. Army and support their critical national security missions with this new capability," said Peder Jungck of BAE Systems.

"Our open source solution is designed to deliver timely, objective, and cogent information to mission-critical programs in the face of evolving threats and the continuous increase in the volume and sources of open source data," Jungck said.

The company, headquartered in London, is Europe's largest defense contractor and has 83,000 employees worldwide. In July, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded BAE Systems a contract worth up to $4.7 million to integrate machine learning into intelligence gathering involving radio frequency signals.

Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues

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