Lack of Cooperation Between Contractors Creates Lasting Vulnerabilities for DoD, Official Says

Competition among U.S. weapons makers keeps them from collaborating on cybersecurity problems, and it’s causing new and lasting vulnerabilities for the military, according to Col. Tim Brooks, the mission assurance division chief in the Department of Army Management Office.

Weapons systems often overlay multiple different hardware and software products that are not all made by the same company. Brooks says the problems are “compounded by the fact that all these systems of systems are produced by subprime contractors and everyone’s got non-disclosure agreements and no one wants to disclose their secret sauce.” He called for “a common standard to ensure that information can flow from one side of an organization to another.”

The Defense Department is supposed to complete vulnerability assessments for a total of 31 different major weapons programs before 2019, based on a requirement in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act