Tuesday, May 31, 2011

F-35 Jet Security Compromised.....???? / Article from April 21, 2011

Lockheed Says F-35 Security Hasn’t Been Breached (Update2)

By Edmond Lococo and Tony Capaccio - April 21, 2009 16:29 EDT

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Lockheed Martin Corp., the world’s largest defense company, said it isn’t aware of any successful cyber attacks on computers used to develop the new F-35 fighter jet program as described in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“We believe the article in Wall Street Journal was incorrect in its representation of successful cyber attacks on the F-35 program,” Lockheed spokeswoman Cheryl Amerine said in an e-mail. “To our knowledge there has never been any classified information breach. Like the government, we have attacks on our systems continually and have stringent measures in place to both detect and stop attacks.”
The fighter program “had been repeatedly broken into,” the newspaper reported, citing six current and former officials familiar with the matter. The unidentified intruders were “able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems,” making it easier to defend against the aircraft, the Journal reported.
The F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, is the largest U.S. weapons program valued at $298.9 billion. That cost includes research, development and the purchase of at least 2,456 U.S. aircraft with common parts for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman is “not aware of any specific concerns” that sensitive technology has been compromised on the F-35, he told reporters today at the Pentagon.
Lockheed today reported first-quarter net income dropped 8.8 percent to $666 million, or $1.68 a share, because of rising pension costs. Lockheed rose 31 cents to $76.04 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares dropped 29 percent in the past 12 months.
To contact the reporters on this story: Edmond Lococo in Boston at elococo@bloomberg.net; Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Miller at kmiller@bloomberg.net.

Monday, May 30, 2011

F-35 Security may be compromised

Lockheed breach exposes flaws

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco
Published: May 31 2011 00:35 | Last updated: May 31 2011 00:35

A hacking attack disclosed at the weekend against the largest US defence contractor suggests that government and private efforts to protect military secrets are struggling with cybersecurity.
Lockheed Martin and US officials confirmed the attack after media reports linked it to a breach in March at RSA, the company that provides tokens authorising computer access by remote users at Lockheed and many other companies and agencies.
Lockheed did not confirm that the raid on its data built on the attack on RSA, but many analysts said that it was likely, because one of Lockheed’s first acts had been to disable the remote logins.
More disturbing, they said, was the fact like others in the defence industry, Lockheed had previously acted to make itself less dependent on the fast-changing numeric passwords produced by the RSA tokens.
The RSA breach began with e-mails sent to its staff with an attachment that contained a hidden remote-access program that took advantage of a security flaw in Adobe’s Flash software for viewing content.
Without saying exactly what had been taken, RSA warned that the stolen information could be used in future attacks on its SecurID token customers.
Analysts said it appeared the hackers had obtained the “seed” numbers used to generate passwords. If they combined that with administration information kept by customers associating tokens with specific employees, the passwords could be duplicated.
The National Security Agency went further, declaring not long after the RSA attack that the tokens should no longer be deemed sufficient to grant access to “critical infrastructure”. Defence contractors including Lockheed began requiring employees to put in extra personal passwords.
Although Lockheed said its programs and customer data had not been compromised in the attack, the breach suggests that the extra passwords were not sufficient to repel hackers, an ominous sign for remote-access systems in defence and other industries.
“If there is a direct connection between the RSA breach and the subsequent attacks on Lockheed Martin and other defence contractors, this will be one of the most sophisticated sequences of attack events ever,” said Richard Stiennon, a former Gartner security analyst and author of a recent book on cyberwar.
Neither the RSA nor the Lockheed breaches have been blamed on any hacking group or country. But senior US intelligence officials have repeatedly accused China of orchestrating a campaign of cyber espionage aimed at stealing defence secrets, and the trails from many of the most recent sophisticated intrusions in recent years at leading US concerns have led back to the mainland.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

HAMMER FALLS IN JUNE

Pentagon F-35 review postponed until mid-June

* New review date set for June 14

* Pentagon waiting for cost estimates, operating dates

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, May 27 (Reuters) - A high-level Pentagon review of the Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter program has been postponed from this week until June 14, three sources familiar with the scheduled meeting said on Friday.

Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, and other senior defense officials are due to establish a new procurement baseline at the meeting for the radar-evading F-35, or Joint Strike Fighter, which is currently estimated to cost $382 billion.

The new baseline -- against which any future cost growth will be measured -- will reflect a major restructuring of the program announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in February, the program's second major revamp in two years.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin gave no specific date, but said the panel would now meet in mid- to late-June for a detailed review of the Pentagon's costliest weapons program.

The F-35 program came under fire for rising costs at a Senate hearing last week, but Lockheed Chief Executive Robert Stevens this week said he was confident the company could resolve development challenges facing the program. The F-35 is expected to account for more than 20 percent of Lockheed's global sales once it enters full production.

Carter told the committee that buying the planned 2,443 F-35 planes for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps was estimated to cost twice as much in real terms as originally expected. Carter said that price was "unacceptable and unaffordable," but expressed confidence that the Pentagon would be able to trim excess costs in the coming months and years.

Defense consultant Jim McAleese said he did not expect the postponed Pentagon meeting to result in significant new decisions since it was largely intended to validate the restructuring that had already been announced.

But the sources said the panel is also expecting a new "independent cost estimate" that is being prepared by the Pentagon's Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE), as well as new updated dates for when the military services expect to begin using the warplanes.

One source said neither the cost estimates or fresh "initial operating capacity" dates had been finalized yet.

Carter told Reuters this month he did not expect the new cost estimate to differ substantially from the earlier ones.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, estimates that development of the new warplanes will cost a total of $56.4 billion and conclude in 2018, a 26 percent cost increase and a five-year schedule slip from the program's current baseline.

The total cost of operating and maintaining the new planes over coming decades is expected to top $1 trillion, according to Pentagon estimates, but defense officials and industry executives say they are working hard to reduce those costs. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa, editing by Bernard Orr)

Friday, May 27, 2011

What happens to Canada if the U.S. scraps the F-35?

The Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter-bomber was supposed to serve as the backbone of the U.S. Air Force while bringing affordable radar-evading stealth technology to medium-sized U.S. allies including Australia, the Netherlands and Canada. Now senior Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are openly musing about scrapping the most expensive defence program in history. The F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), is 13 to 30 months late meeting revised deadlines. The price per unit has doubled. Last week the Pentagon issued what Senator John McCain called a “jaw-dropping” estimate of US$1-trillion to keep a future 2,400-plane U.S. fleet of F-35s flying for five decades. Canada has been counting on the F-35 to defend its airspace. ThePost’s Adam McDowell looks at what is at stake if this option is taken away:

THE LATEST PROBLEMS

The Pentagon’s US$1-trillion maintenance estimate spooked Washington, much as Ottawa shuddered in March when Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page released an admittedly sketchy figure of $29-billion for Canada to acquire and maintain the F-35. That was nearly double what the governing Conservatives had forecast. Meanwhile, the Pentagon figure just reflects maintenance costs and does not include the price of buying the planes, which has spiralled skyward to US$382-billion. “Acquiring these jets was supposed to cost a total of US$233-billion,” Mr. McCain grumbled. The new projections also come at a time when the Pentagon is facing pressure to curtail costs. U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has put “on probation” the problematic version of the F-35 that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter (a version Canada has no plans to buy); it has two years to prove itself or be cancelled. Finally, the White House warned Tuesday it will veto any defence spending bill that includes an alternative engine program for the F-35.

THE RESPONSE

Manufacturer Lockheed Martin believes the Pentagon estimate is wrong, but has not offered an alternate figure. “We believe we can beat that by a fairly substantial amount,” said Tom Burbage, executive vice president of Lockheed.

“The facts regarding this program are truly troubling,” John McCain, the ranking Republican member, told a May 19 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Originally, the JSF program was supposed to deliver an affordable, highly common, fifth-generation aircraft that, by leveraging proven technologies, could be acquired … in large numbers. And the program was supposed to, first, deliver operational aircraft to the services back in 2008. [But] when the services will get their JSFs with real combat capability is anyone’s guess.” Scolding Lockheed for doing an “abysmal job” of containing costs, the senator issued a (possibly empty) threat: “It seems to me we have to start at least considering alternatives.”

UPSHOT FOR CANADA: PESSIMIST’S VERSION

If the F-35 is scrapped, Canada could end up buying more expensive aircraft that are less capable and will become obsolete faster. The country’s CF-18 fighter-bombers need to be replaced. The Department of National Defence has identified the F-35 as the only suitable aircraft for the job. So many NATO members and allies expect to buy the JSF that there are few alternatives on the market — essentially the Swedish Gripen, the French Rafale and the American Super Hornet. “They’re capable aircraft, but they’re a step behind the F-35,” said retired Lieutenant-General Angus Watt, formerly head of the Canadian Air Force. “The F-35 is designed to take us into 2040s, 2050s. The designs of the 1970s, 1980s, probably won’t cut it then.” Canada cannot buy the stealth F-22 Raptor, the most advanced plane in the world, because of its cost, specialization and above all the fact that the U.S. Congress has banned foreign sales. Drones, meanwhile, are still immature, accident-prone technology. Could Canada go without fighters altogether? The Conservatives would remind Canadians that our Air Force is presently using its CF-18s to pound Libya’s Gaddafi regime with laser-guided bombs. And what will warn Russian bombers not to creep into Canadian airspace? Not having fighters, Lt.-Gen. Watt said, would be like a town trying to do without a fire department.

UPSHOT FOR CANADA: OPTIMIST’S VERSION

Canada can back away from the F-35 if the program goes terribly wrong. “We’re in good shape, actually, because we haven’t signed a purchase contract,” Lt.-Gen. Watt said. “Everybody’s worried running around in Canada but … we haven’t committed to actually purchasing the airplane. When we do, we’ll know the cost at the time.” If the F-35 is cancelled outright, Canada may be saved from buying a lemon, said Stephen Staples, head of an Ottawa-based military affairs think tank. “The problem is the plane was designed by committee and it operates like it was designed by committee. It tries to do a lot of things, and doesn’t do them very well,” said Mr. Staples, president of the Rideau Institute.

National Post, with files from news services
amcdowell@nationalpost.com

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

U.S. may scrap F35, set to be Israel's fighter jet of the future

The warplane, with stealth capabilities, was slated to replace an entire generation of jet fighters in the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

By Anshel Pfeffer

Senior members of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee last week instructed the Pentagon to come up with alternatives to the jet fighter of the future, the F-35, with the project facing massive cost overruns.

The plane has been selected as the future of the Israel Air Force, and for now there are no plans for an alternative if the American project is shelved.

	Fighter jet.
	Photo by: Reuters

U.S. Defense Department officials presented the latest data last Thursday to the senate committee on the F-35s test flights and costs.

The plane, with stealth capabilities, is slated to replace an entire generation of jet fighters in the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

But after hearing the data, committee chairman Senator Carl Levin and committee member Senator John McCain said it seemed time to consider alternatives.

The remarks at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, a forum that has historically supported military spending, seems to be the most serious threat the F-35 has faced so far.

"We cannot sacrifice other important acquisitions in the Department of Defense investment portfolio to pay for this capability," Levin said.

The sense in Washington is that after years in which there was strong political backing for the American defense industries' banner project, senior politicians are having to scale back support in the face of a mounting budget deficit.

Last November, the bi-partisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform called for a complete halt in the purchase of one model of the F-35, slated for operation on aircraft carriers, and to halve the purchase of the rest of the models.

At the moment, a purchase of 2,443 planes is planned for the U.S. Air Force, the Navy and the Marines, with foreign countries, including Israel, purchasing another approximately 600 jets.

However, some of these countries are already cutting back on their orders. The cost of one F-35 was planned to have been $69 million, but according to the Pentagon's calculation, the cost has now risen to $103 million and according to Government Accountability Office calculations from last year, it could climb to $112 million.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisitions Ashton Carter told the Senate panel that the costs are "unacceptable," but pledged to find ways to reduce them.

Some of the cost of the aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed-Martin, stems from significant delays in the test program, in integrating its advanced systems and in a structural problem discovered during testing.

The planes are planned to begin entering into service in the U.S. Air Force in 2013, but it is now believed that only in 2015 will the plane's final software package be fully integrated and only in 2016 will the "Block 3" series, with full technological capabilities, be ready for operational flights.

Israel's Defense Ministry has so far ordered 20 F-35s, but the Israel Air Force has plans to outfit three of its operational squadrons with the aircraft, a total of between 60 and 75 planes.

The Israel Defense Forces is now concerned over the expected delay in delivery of the planes. A senior member of the IDF General Staff raised the possibility that to release older planes from service, the IAF lease from the Americans a squadron of used F-15s. However, in an interview with Haaretz two weeks ago, Defense Ministry Director General Udi Shani rejected the idea.

"On the last visit of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Israel a month ago, we were told that the delay would be less than what we had thought," he said.

Shani said the delay could allow Israel to outfit the planes with its own systems. "I am in favor of getting a plane with ... as many systems as possible made in Israel ... According to the original schedule we were told there was no time for that. We have teams in the United States now and after the holiday we'll hear their conclusions and I imagine dialogue will start with the Americans over a new schedule and changes."

The plane has been selected as the future of the Israel Air Force, and for now there are no plans for an alternative if the American project is shelved.


	U.S. Defense Department officials presented the latest data last Thursday to the senate committee on the F-35s test flights and costs.