Inside Intelligence is an evolving platform to address industry news, market challenges and trends. It provides our leading subject matter experts with a forum to initiate and drive conversations with our employees, customers and partners by drawing upon their industry knowledge and experiences and sharing best practices on critical topics.
BAE Systems thought leaders that will engage on critical industry topics include, at the helm of the business, Dr. John Gannon, president of the Intelligence & Security sector at BAE Systems; former FBI Assistant Deputy Director for Counterintelligence, John Slattery and former Creech Air Force Base Commander Mike McKinney.
Examples of the topics that will be discussed here include:
On November 29, the Washington Post published an article that shed light on a closely guarded network of tunnels in China allegedly used to transport nuclear weapons. While the research offered interesting information regarding the breadth and sophistication of China’s arsenal, it was the derivation and authors of a cited report that struck a chord with those of us invested in advancing open source intelligence (OSINT) analysis as a professionalized trade.
“Intelligence Analyst" was ranked by CNN as the 9th Best Job in America in their 2009 survey. Analysts solve problems dominated by ambiguous, conflicting, incomplete and deceptive information. For these reasons, analysis is a lot harder than merely “finding a needle in a haystack.” Let me explain:
“Finding a needle in a haystack” requires several key conditions:
1) There is a needle in the haystack.
2) There is exactly one needle in the haystack.
3) You are looking in the correct haystack.
4) You have the ability to detect the needle when you come across it.
5) You are actually supposed to be looking for a needle.
If all of the above are true, then, by definition, you know what you are looking for and where to find it. Improving performance is really only a matter of doing things faster. Activity-based intelligence (ABI) analysts aren’t usually presented with this textbook problem. The analogy is more like finding hay in a stack of hay.
The quantity and complexity of cyber attacks continues to increase. However until recently, our higher education system did not offer courses in cybersecurity. Thankfully, this is changing with several leading American colleges and universities now adding cybersecurity programs as options for students. The U.S. Naval Academy recently announced that it is updating its curriculum for the first time in ten years, with the addition of two cybersecurity courses. All Service Academies will now have cybersecurity topics integrated into their curriculum. I trust that these are the first in a series of positive steps that the U.S. will take to close the cybersecurity education gap. Moreover, I look forward to the day when cybersecurity rankings are analogous to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) rankings used to compare competencies of populations.
Cyber attacks can seriously disrupt operations within the Department of Defense (DOD), federal government and U.S. businesses, threatening our national security and intellectual property. Digital forensics is a key component of the nation’s response, as it relates to critical and real-time intelligence. In early 1998, the DOD established the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) to deliver the world’s best digital forensics, training and intrusion response support to strengthen DOD law enforcement and counterintelligence, and to assure cyberspace dominance.
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BAE Systems is a global defense and security company with approximately 100,000 employees worldwide. The Company delivers a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology solutions and support services.