Research Summaries

Back Optimized Network Emulation of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Tactical Cyberspace Environments for MAGTF Training

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Balogh, Imre L.
Fitzpatrick, Christian R.
Maule, Randy W.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary In response to our adversaries making use of the electromagnetic spectrum to achieve tactical effects, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been creating new infrastructure to organize our cyber and electronic warfare forces across the services. Building expertise across the ranks, as with any technical discipline, requires years of study, experimentation, and repetition in a realistic learning environment. Unfortunately, the setting required to fine tune these specialized skill sets does not fully exist today. Although, the National Cyber Range (NCR) and the Joint Information Operations Range (JIOR) are available for use, these environments, at the enterprise level, do not emulate the radio frequency (RF)-to-cyberspace environment which mimics the modern cyber battlefield the Marine Corps is likely to face at the tactical edge.

Approach:
1. Create a lab for thesis students to use Lincoln’s Adaptive Real-Time Information Assurance Test-bed (LARIAT) to develop tactical RF-to-cyber scenarios suitable for transmission on local area networks (LAN)
2. Task students to use agent-based modeling to create content for transmission on LARIAT.
3. Execute each scenario in the open-air environment varying the independent variables in each of the topology configurations
4. Collect and analyze the scenario data using open-source tools to assess the realism of the developed scenario and find the optimal topology.
5. Begin development of a tactical scenario library for Marines to use on the Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations System Module (EMSOSM).

Deliverables: All of the software and documentation for a single tactical scenario emulating agent executing wired and wireless communications on the network; Student theses covering the most realistic RF-to-Cyber network topologies and the minimum hardware requirements for use on existing urban ranges.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal