United States Army Corps of Engineers at the service’s C5ISR Centre (Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) are getting hold of blockchain technology for a new tactical level data management.

This whole new strategic level data management capability is part of the C5ISR centre’s Information Trust plan of action. During the ground service’s NetModX (Network Modernization Experiment), which held at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, it was one of the numerous prototype technologies tested in May 2021.

C5ISR computer engineer Humza Shahid said in this matter that the main aim of the entire program is to offer the US army “a mathematical, verifiable way of vetting their data, from sensorto shooter and procedure to consumer.” He also added, “The idea is to give the commanding officer the ability to make critical decisions, with the added trust in their information” by excluding so-called “man in the middle” attacks to manipulate data transmissions before it becomes available to the end-users.

Often, an opponent will strike at lines of support or communication to cause disturbance, rather than face the front line. Strengthening of digital infrastructure is necessary in modern days, as armies in warfare can be more defenceless to cyberattacks than the real ones. To refute this possibility, the migration of a secured blockchain is the key.

Alongside NetModX, US army engineers are also focusing on the information trust technology to enhance authentication applications “in order to validate who a user is expected to be , without looking at just their login.” As data integrity passes through the network by machine learning applications to identify anomalies in transmitted data, the army leaders are working on that too.

However before US army’s initiative, in the year 2019, an open source blockchain platform, Tezos became the first blockchain to be used for operational purposes by a public entity.

Joyashree Dey

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA