Velocity by Booz Allen

MISSION HIGHLIGHT

In this architecture, data brokers serve as the connective tissue between data feeds and data lakes. Data brokers employ a “pub/sub” (publish/subscribe) model in which data feeds publish data to the broker and data lakes subscribe to the data needed. This allows organizations to treat data as a living artifact, where modular applications consume data streams off the data broker, process that data, and publish it back so other applications can access data products with ease. This breaks down data silos, allowing new solutions to be deployed with full access to data, and addresses fundamental data limitations that exist in commercially diverse defensive suites. Consequently, federal agencies can enhance data visibility across platforms without rigid, time-consuming data-integration activities. In parallel, a dedicated solution for advanced detection deployment reduces reliance on commercial vendors to execute new tradecraft. This deployment solution works in concert with the data broker, where it subscribes to streaming input data, enriches input data with advanced detection outputs, and publishes all data back to the broker for consumption by operational platforms and data lakes. Additionally, this simplifies mission integration of advanced detection tools (e.g., AI/ ML), where the solution handles the connection of data to n number of detection capability tools. This open architecture allows federal agencies to use the commercial infrastructure they are comfortable with while increasing their flexibility to deploy new defenses. Advanced detection capabilities become

increasingly shareable between mission partners as tradecraft is deployed as modular applications. This empowers the Federal Government to fight together, scaling investments on top of those made by other agencies. By reducing cumbersome data and capability integration activities, agencies can reallocate resources to invest in the development of more advanced detection methods required to defend the nation against increasingly creative and dynamic adversaries. By decoupling these capabilities with the infrastructure in which they are executed, new investments can truly have an Winning tomorrow’s fight requires a cultural shift and an architectural shift to keep pace with sophisticated adversaries and drive the development of advanced tradecraft. Rather than fighting in silos, federal agencies and organizations must work together to harden shared defenses. This requires the adoption of open architectures, intelligent protection of federal IP, and decreased dependence on out- of-the-box commercial offerings. By continuing to address the infrastructure challenges of today that limit scalable, enterprise-wide use of AI/ML for cybersecurity, the federal community can shift resources to defend our nation against the cyber adversaries of tomorrow. enterprise-wide impact. Enabling the Shift Patrick Myers and Aaron Sant-Miller focus on deploying AI and ML solutions that secure the nation’s IT, respond to threats, and support critical missions across federal agencies.

The CDAO The Department of Defense

(DoD) Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) is “the senior official responsible for the acceleration of the DoD’s adoption of data, analytics, and AI to generate decision advantage across the boardroom to the battlefield.” In support of that mission, the CDAO is developing a suite of infrastructure, tools, services, and best practices to unify and scale AI-enabled solutions for national defense. To this aim, the CDAO offers Perceptor, an AI/ ML deployment and monitoring platform owned and operated by the CDAO and intended for joint community use. With Perceptor, cyber AI/ML or advanced detection capabilities can be decoupled from the infrastructure in which they are executed and instead aligned to a government standard and shared across agencies. The CDAO has successfully partnered with agencies across DoD to integrate Perceptor with existing defensive suites, accelerating integration of advanced detection tools and AI/ML capabilities, enhancing the defenses of DoD information networks, and allowing government IP retention and cross-agency capability sharing. In practice, this has allowed DoD to fight as one, exchanging and reusing AI/ML capabilities to work together against common adversaries.

SPEED READ

As cyber adversaries become more inventive, traditional defense strategies are proving inadequate. There is a need for advanced detection techniques, particularly AI/ML, to proactively identify and counter emerging threats, differentiating malicious activities from anomalies. The current trend of acquiring tools often leads to a fragmented defensive landscape. This approach not only limits the Government’s agility in adapting to new threats but also ties them to vendors’ motivations, potentially stunting innovation and adaptability. A unified vision for the future requires a balanced approach, blending commercial and noncommercial tools through open, modular architectures. This would enable federal agencies to share advanced detection capabilities, breaking down data silos and fostering a collaborative defensive strategy against sophisticated cyber adversaries.

2023 Opening of Booz Allen’s Pax River Mission Systems Integration Facility (Speaker: Judi Dotson , Booz Allen Global Defense Sector President). At 20,000 square feet, this facility is a first-of-its-kind space in the region to rapidly design, develop, prototype, integrate, test, and evaluate innovative solutions that address the warfighter’s evolving and dynamic needs.