U.S. military personnel from Kadena Air Base teamed up with Japan Self Defense Force personnel on January 19, 2023 for ‘Southern Beach’ - military training exercises between the two countries.  Southern Beach allows U.S. and Japanese personnel the opportunity to train through integration of forces, ultimately helping to better assess and understand each other’s strengths, and areas of improvement. “Southern Beach is a bilateral exercise between U.S. personnel from Kadena Air Base and the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Sebastian Coburn, 18th Operations Support Squadron dissimilar air combat-training wing chief.

Airpower supremacy was on display as the U.S. Air Force publicly unveiled the B-21 Raider, America’s first new, long-range strike bomber in a generation.  While it won’t be operational for a number of years, nevertheless, the groundbreaking public unveiling at Northrop Grumman’s production facilities in California was a clear warning shot to all around the world - America’s military dominates the skies with cutting-edge, industry leading aircraft.  The B-21 is the first new bomber to be introduced since the end of the Cold War.

On January 26, 2023, the United States and Israel successfully concluded what would be the largest ever partnered military exercise between the two countries. The the U.S.-Israel military partnership is stronger than it ever has been, and it continues to grow, stated Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command in a news release, while aboard the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier today.

While federal contractors are hopefully busying themselves with implementing comprehensive measures for the safeguarding of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), it’s important to take note of several helpful tools.  A great reference for helping build and implement a structured and formalized CUI program is NIST Special Publication 800-172 - Enhanced Security Requirements for Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information.  What makes NIST 800-172 such a great compliment to NIST 800-171 is that it lists each of the prescriptive security requirements, then provides an excellent ‘Discussion’ section for giving federal contractors much-needed information, examples, and clarity on how the control itself should be implemented in terms of CUI safeguarding.

The Department of Defense (DoD) awarded Howard University with a $90 million military research contract that focuses on military applications of autonomous technology.  It’s a watershed moment for Howard University indeed, both due to the size of the contract for a university, and that it makes Howard the first historically Black institution to receive such a contract.  As such, Howard will serve as the 15th University Affiliated Research Center (UARC).

Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, released a report stressing the importance of cybersecurity and urging Congress to act. 

According to Warner, healthcare “...is the most attractive or lucrative part of ransomware. People’s personal health information is even more valuable than financial information.  Nobody’s in charge. I went to go see the org chart again, and I counted four separate Cabinet secretaries that touch health care cybersecurity. You do need somebody in charge. Cyber is always an afterthought. It has to be built into health care as new applications and even treatment modalities are created.”^[1]

Ukraine just inched even closer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO_ - at least in terms of cybersecurity - by signing an agreement with NATO regarding participation with NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre (CCDCOE), the accredited research and training facility dealing with education, consultation, lessons learned, research and development in the field of cyber security.

The National Industrial Security Program (NISP) Enterprise Mission Assurance Support Service (eMASS) - the official system of record for the NISP Risk Management Framework (RMF) Assessment and Authorization (A&A), turns four years old on May 06, 2023. 

Unit 61398 is a group within China’s People Liberation Army (PLA) that has been linked to a wide range of cyber-attacks aimed directly at the United States for purposes of espionage.  The unit is said to be housed in a 12-story building near Shanghai containing thousands of cybersecurity professionals operating under direct government orders from the Chinese government.