The essential modernization of the communications network of the American army battlefield undertaken by Andundil, Palantant And others are plagued by problems and vulnerabilities of “fundamental security”, and should be treated as a “very high risk”, according to a recent memo of the internal army.
The two companies of Silicon Valley, led by allies of the American president Donald Trump, had access to the lucrative of the Pentagon contracts on the promise to quickly provide cheaper and more sophisticated weapons than the suppliers of long -standing weapons of the Pentagon.
The military drone and the Andundil software manufacturer boasted that he had a prototype of the communication platform NGC2 working during a battlefield test barely eight weeks after winning the contract. But the September 5 memo provides fodder to criticism that argues that the ethics of Silicon Valley, ruptures of rupture may not be the best approach for vital military equipment.
The memo of the director of army technology on the NGC2 platform which links soldiers, sensors, vehicles and commanders to real-time data painted a dark security image of the initial product.
“We cannot control who sees what, we cannot see what users do, and we cannot check that the software itself is secure,” said the note.
These concerns have already been dealt with as part of the “normal process” of development, said Andundil. “The recent report reflects an obsolete snapshot, not the current state of the program,” the company said in a statement sent by email to Reuters.
A spokesperson for Palantir said: “No vulnerability was found in the Palantir platform.”
However, the internal note of the army written by Gabriele Chiulli, the director of army technology authorizing an official on the NGC2 prototype, said: “Given the current security posture of the platform and the third-party hosts, the probability of a persistent adversary risk of the platform requires that the system be treated as a very high risk.”
The Palantant stock closed down 7.5% on Friday. Andundil is not listed on the stock market, although the founder of the company Palmer Luckey said that a public offer was planned.
An article of September 30 on the Anduril website presented the performance of the NGC2 system during a live shooting exercise in Fort Carson, Colorado: “The soldiers drew 26 live missions with M777 shells on the live ranges of Fort Carson, in the process of execution of ax with other teams of teams.
Leonel Garciga, Army Information Director and Chiulli supervisor told Reuters in an interview on Friday that Frank Vendor’s communication was important.
“I think there are only one application that still has vulnerabilities they worked on,” said Garciga, adding that many problems have been solved in a few weeks and days.
The evaluation of the CTO army, seen by Reuters and reported for the first time by Breaking Defense, comes only a few months after Antil obtained a 100 million dollars contract to create an NGC2 prototype with partners such as Palant, Microsoft and several small entrepreneurs.
The memo said that the system allows any authorized user to access all applications and data, regardless of their level of release or operational need. Consequently, “any user can potentially access and abuse classified information,” said the service note, without journalization to follow their actions.
The other gaps highlighted in the note include the accommodation of third party requests that have not undergone army security assessments. An application revealed 25 high severity code vulnerabilities. Three additional applications being examined each contain more than 200 vulnerabilities requiring an assessment, depending on the document.
Garciga said that next week, the Palantir Federal Cloud Service, on which the battlefield system is based, could be approved by the army to deploy software updates more quickly after receiving a marking authorization known as “authority continues to operate”.
Palantir and Andundil lead a new wave of defense companies aimed at transforming the American army with advanced technologies, including drones, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.
Palant, a data analysis company known for his work with intelligence agencies, and Andundil saw their evaluation increase under the chairmanship of Trump, while Washington turns more and more towards Silicon Valley style innovation to counter increasing threats.
Anduril recently signed an agreement of $ 159 million for an initial prototyping period to develop a night vision and mixed reality program as part of the Soldier Mission Command program (formerly IVA following). Palantant signed a $ 480 million contract for Maven, an artificial intelligence tool that passes through the sensor images and data to provide an analysis of the battlefield.
