Page 105 - Cyber Defense eMagazine January 2023

is still unresolved. In order to tackle wireless internet operability it’s needed to accept high-scale power
supply which will transfer messages over long distances. Many competitive military organizations use
radio waves to transmit signal and that works, but obvious challenge is such a communication must be
with strong security as exchanged data could be very sensitive putting under risk army cells on battlefield.

Communication departments with military sector cope with data transmission equipment, as well as some
storage capacities. In essence, information must be sent, received and saved somewhere. Many army
organizations rely on could-based systems which can offer them chance to reliably manage data.
Practically, everything happening with military communication is done in cyberspace. Majority of those
contributions are linked with information-communication technologies and anything occurring there
leaves trace in high-tech environment. Current tendency is digitalization and analog systems are manly
replaced with digital ones. On the other hand, nature is mostly analog, so inputs and outputs of digital
architecture must apply analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, respectively. Those solutions
are widely available on marketplace and either it is dealt with civilian engineering or defense industry
getting parts for projects is quite simple. In other words, it’s needed to take advantage over suppliers of
semi-final and final products and just embed them into final solution. It might seem that it’s about
assembly industry, but even large-scale companies count on their contractors which have signed
partnership agreements with them. Apparently, R&D looks for creativity and fresh ideas, while production
and ending design can obtain what they aim simply doing some sort of compliance. R&D engineers in
both – civilian and military sectors are such an ingenious as they might give something coping with
international progress. Research community is capable of making positive changes, but in case to need
such an outcome it’s necessary to invest into that workforce. Some statistics suggest that it’s needed to
make skill and knowledge transfer to young professionals up to ten years as such a best practice can
provide workforce which will return those investments being in position to demonstrate true skill and
expertise once they have learnt how to resolve some practical project. Engineering is journey which
requires life-long learning and those staffing are people which never stop thinking.

Cyber defense is strategic matter and it covers all possible roads of protecting critical assets. Military
communities mainly use cyber technologies to maintain findings exchange within air, water and land
defense systems. For example, in civilian fashion it is feasible to manage communication between
aircrafts and ground control, but it is significant to pay attention on safety and security of air traffic
transportation systems. On the other hand, current technological breakthrough suggests mass
application of web connectivity within air, water and land infrastructure. In other words, that means any
device within network has assigned IP address which makes it vulnerable to hacking operations. Main
imperative in such a case is to develop army solutions primarily taking into consideration cyber security
demands at initialization of any defense industry project. Role of R&D team is to deeply investigate all
potential threats to project and as control engineering has become ultimate goal to any industrial effort
it’s clear why well-designed control system is from such an importance. Control systems include controller
and plant which can be in feedback using ongoing sensor grids. Purpose of controller is to receive input
variable and send command signal to plant. Further, controller operates according to some control
algorithm and it can usually be some computing unit. That means it is well-capable to work with data and
instruction as it has its processing capacity. Industry mostly uses programmable logic controllers and
embedded solutions in order to govern some object or process. Both controllers are digital and able to
convert signal relying on analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog transformation. Typically, code
developers need to make computer program on PCs and lately transfer it to those two sorts of controllers.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – January 2023 Edition 105
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