September 2022 news cluster

US approves $1.95 billion sale of Black Hawks to Australia

By Joe Gould Aug 26,

The State Department on Thursday approved the sale of 40 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters and a host of related kit totaling $1.95 billion to Australia, which will replace the Australian Defence Force’s troubled MRH90 Taipan utility helicopters.

WASHINGTON ― The State Department this week approved a $1.95 billion sale to Australia of 40 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, which will replace the Australian Defence Force’s troubled MRH90 Taipan utility helicopters.

Abrams-maker GDLS announces $1.1 billion tank deal for Poland

By Sebastian Sprenger Aug 25,

A U.S. Abrams tank is seen as troops from Poland, the U.S., France and Sweden take part in the Defender Europe 22 military exercise in Nowogrod, Poland, on May 19, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Dollars will start flowing toward Poland’s long-planned purchase of tanks, as the U.S. Army taps General Dynamics Land Systems to make 250 Abrams in the newest configuration, the company announced.

The $1.148 billion contract — awarded in late July, according to the Army — will get Poland new features in communications, firepower and armor for its future Abrams fleet, per an Aug. 25 company statement.

Sierra Nevada banking on new RAPCON-X plane for Army’s future ISR aircraft

SNC started work on the RAPCON-X aircraft a year ago “in an effort to build something that the Army and DoD needs before they need it,” said Tim Harper, senior director of business development for SNC’s Mission Solutions and Technologies division.

By VALERIE INSINNAon August 26, 2022

Reporters toured a “representation” of Sierra Nevada Corp.’s RAPCON-X plane on Aug. 24, 2022 in Hagerstown, Md. (Sierra Nevada Corp.)

HAGERSTOWN, Md. — As the Army considers how to replace its aging fixed-wing ISR fleet, Sierra Nevada Corp. believes it has already found the answer in its new RAPCON-X aircraft design. And the company plans to go all in, investing $200 million of internal funding to build two prototypes by January 2024, according to company executives.

Awaiting IVAS verdict, SASC directs Army to toy with ‘mixed-equipping’ night vision goggles

An Army official recently said the service hasn't finished analyzing the results from a critical IVAS test, still assessing best path forward for enhanced soldier vision.

By ANDREW EVERSDENon July 21, 2022

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division used the latest prototype of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) during a trench clearing exercise in October at Fort Pickett, Va.(Bridgett Siter/US Army)

WASHINGTON: While the Army continues to analyze how its next-gen Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) did in a recent test, Senate lawmakers plan to direct the service not to ditch its current night vision program and, instead, try “mixed-equipping” soldiers with both systems, just in case.

The Senate Armed Services Committee voiced its worry in its version of its fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, coming after the Army zeroed out funding for the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular in its FY23 budget request before the IVAS program passed its initial operational test.

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Defense Business Brief: It’s gonna take time to get US arms to Ukraine; Army goes shopping; Air Force gets security helos; and more.

BY MARCUS WEISGERBER

GLOBAL BUSINESS EDITOR AUGUST 26, 2022

The U.S. has now pledged to send Ukraine more than $13 billion in weapons and aid since Russia invaded back in February. The Pentagon this week released a lengthy list of arms that it has already sent or is in the pipeline.

One important thing to note is that some of the weapons on that list don’t exist yet and still have to be manufactured, meaning it will take a good amount of time before these systems make it to the battlefield. Late last week, a U.S. senior defense official noted it would take “two to three months” before sophisticated missile defenses are ready to be shipped to Ukraine. That’s because Raytheon Technologies needs to build the eight National Advanced Surface to Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, that the U.S. is sending Kyiv.

The Pentagon still hasn’t awarded a contract for Switchblade kamikaze drones, Defense News reports. And Phoenix Ghost drones that the U.S. first pledged in April aren’t expected to arrive until “later this month,” the official said.

A $775 million arms package announced last week “contains indicators of trade-offs because the United States is facing inventory shortages,” Mark Cancian, a senior advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, wrote Friday. The $3 billion arms package announced on Wednesday “will sustain the Ukrainian military over the long term but take months or even years to implement fully.”

10 Cyner security facts:

95 percent of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. (World Economic Forum)

The worldwide information security market is forecast to reach $366.1 billion in 2028. (Fortune Business Insights)

The U.S. was the target of 46 percent of cyberattacks in 2020, more than double any other country. (Microsoft)

68 percent of business leaders feel their cybersecurity risks are increasing. (Accenture)

On average, only five percent of companies’ folders are properly protected. (Varonis)

54 percent of companies say their IT departments are not sophisticated enough to handle advanced cyberattacks. (Sophos)

Cyber fatigue, or apathy to proactively defending against cyberattacks, affects as much as 42 percent of companies. (Cisco)

43 percent of all breaches are insider threats, either intentional or unintentional. (Check Point)

Data breaches exposed 22 billion records in 2021. (RiskBased Security)

Approximately 70 percent of breaches in 2021 were financially motivated, while less than five percent were motivated by espionage. (Verizon)