Life-Cycle Management - Army Logistics University - U.S. Army

UltraLog: Securing Logistics
Information on the Battlefield
BY COMMANDER JAMES C. WORKMAN, USN (RET.)
Sustaining highly maneuverable forces on a rapidly changing, noncontiguous
battlefield requires an agile logistics command and control system. But can
such a system prevent compromise of its data by a determined adversary?
Ubiquitous information is a cornerstone of many
contemporary visions of future warfare. Programs
as diverse as the Office of the Secretary
of Defense’s Force Transformation program and the
Army’s Future Combat Systems program envision a
tight linking of operations, intelligence, and logistics
made possible by extensive, shared, and widely distributed
information.
Military logisticians generally
accept the potential
advantages of a future
logistics system that
is highly networked
and that is able to
widely distribute
real-time, actionable
data on the battlefield.
However, the
survivability of such a
logistics information system has
not been demonstrated in practice on the
battlefield or tested extensively in the laboratory.
With its UltraLog project, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has taken up the
challenge of building and demonstrating just such a
networked logistics system. Specifically, the UltraLog
project’s goal is to build an extremely survivable,
agent-based logistics planning and execution information
system for the modern battlefield. [An
agent, or intelligent agent, is a software program that
can perform many functions for a human computer
user by applying a certain amount of reasoning.] In
UltraLog, intelligent agents can be agents that are
embedded in a military unit to perform the automated
logistics function for that unit, or they can be agents
that perform UltraLog system functions outside of military
units. The agent society models combat and support
units, equipment, transportation networks, and
ARMY LOGISTICIAN PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF UNITED STATES ARMY LOGISTICS
supply chains. [An “agent society” is an information
system composed of networked intelligent agents.]
The survivability of a distributed logistics system is
based on three primary components: robustness, scalability,
and security. Robustness is the ability of a system
to continue functioning when one or more of its
components are destroyed or impaired. Scalability is
the ability of a system to withstand
massive increases in size and
workload, such as might
be encountered in
going from peacetime
operations to
war. Security is
the capacity of a
system to maintain
integrity and confidentiality,
even when it
is under directed information
warfare (IW) attacks. To be
successful, future logistics information
systems must be robust, scalable, and secure; in short,
they must be survivable under battlefield conditions.
In an article in the November–December 2004 issue
of Army Logistician, retired Lieutenant General
Leo Pigaty and I examined UltraLog’s robustness
and scalability and detailed the process for assessing
the military usefulness of logistics data produced
when UltraLog was attacked along those two vectors.
This article discusses UltraLog’s security
defenses against cyberattack.
Security Threat Environment
Cyberterrorism is a fact of Information Age life. As
a form of asymmetrical warfare, an IW attack may
result in potential damage that is completely disproportionate
to the level of effort the attacker expends to
achieve that damage. Attacks can be launched with
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