Army Leaders Emphasize Data Security as Foundation for NGC2

The Army’s data environment security is critical to deploying Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2), Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-6 , Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey said Tuesday during a media roundtable at the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.

The Army announced its NGC2 program earlier this year to support the development of a unified data and decision environment designed to enhance operational speed, accuracy and coordination across military domains, according to the Army.

“Data is the new ammunition, so we’re going to focus on it,” Rey said. “The Army CIO, when we started looking at AI and looking at data in general, [said] we needed to have data at … point of need because right now it’s siloed in all these different places.”

He added that Army CIO Leonel Garciga has made data security and governance key points for emerging technologies like AI and machine learning.

“Mr. Garcia wrote a memo, and it said, ‘All of our data needs to move to advantage, and that’s where our data is going to reside,’” Rey said. “From there, we’re going to then aggregate that data, use AI and ML against that data. We have a source of work and protected and now we can actually point people to that protected data across board.”

Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of the Army Brandon Pugh added that data security is critical, particularly in light of emerging threats from adversaries targeting critical infrastructure.

“We’ve unfortunately seen adversaries not showing restraint when it comes to going after our critical infrastructure,” he said. “The disruption to the American way of life … is very real, and from the military perspective, that can have life or death consequences.”

Advancing ICAM to Strengthen Zero Trust

Rey added that the Army is implementing identity, credential and access management (ICAM) and attribute-based access control to maintain data integrity and protection as it moves across networks. Zero trust and other access controls are critical to securing Army information, he added.

“Identity credential access management? We’re not off of that. We really want to achieve that. How do we get attribute-based access control?” Rey said. “How do we tag, and label that data in order to protect it as moves forward.”

“We want to ensure that the entire chain is linked together digitally,” he added.

For emerging and new non-kinetic capabilities, the Army needs quickly developed technologies, Pugh said.

“We need those capabilities within 30 to 45 days,” Pugh said, referencing the Army’s FUZE initiative to streamline innovation pathways. “We’ve been content with multi-year acquisition cycles … it just doesn’t work for tech.”