MoD: Our networks are in 'unacceptable' state and both data and IT bods are stuck in silos
- Reference: 1622208425
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/28/mod_digital_it_strategy_report/
- Source link:
Published earlier this week, the Digital Strategy for Defence paper is full of the usual MoD management-speak while not once mentioning the word “budget”, raising immediate questions about how the latest glitzy vision of the future would be paid for.
The strategy boutique’s latest output replaced two separate digital strategy and doctrine publications issued in late 2019, and defence procurement minister Jeremy Quin MP noted the “bewildering rate” at which digital technology is upending the staid old Ministry of Defence.
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“This Digital Strategy outlines the step-change in approach that is required for Defence to leverage Digital and our Data, as fundamental enablers, to facilitate faster, better decisions and improved Defence outcomes,” burbled the paper’s introduction, under the optimistic heading of “purpose”.
Big government IT has long been a plaything for ambitious managers looking to make a name for themselves on the way up the greasy pole.
[4]UK reveals new 'National Cyber Force', announces Space Command and mysterious AI agency
[5]Ministry of Defence's cyber warfare drive is helping burn a hole through its budget, warns UK's National Audit Office
[6]Ministry of Defence tells contractors not to answer certain UK census questions over security fears
The document’s authors said the MoD’s “technology core is too fragmented, fragile, insecure and obsolescent” for modern-day usage, along with data being locked inside “internal and contractual silos” making it “hard to access and integrate”.
With the MoD being responsible for [7]the new National Cyber Force and Britain’s burgeoning space agency , an IT refresh is probably no bad thing.
“The current lack of end to end visibility, poor awareness of what is in place and an inability to apply controls presents a huge risk and is not an acceptable position. We are compromised with respect to security, operational integrity, functionality and speed.”
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Chief among the paper’s various new flashy Things of the Future is the creation of a Digital Backbone, described as cloud-based and embodying “common standards and architecture”.
The paper’s authors appear to understand the scale of the challenge they’ve set themselves, writing: “The core technical building blocks are the networks, gateways, hosting services, user interfaces (including identity management and access mechanisms) and middleware that come together to deliver data and information wherever and however we need to exploit it”.
Despite the evident state of internal MoD networks, however, there is one great big elephant in the room: who’s going to pay for it? Funding all the flashy headline-grabbing cyber stuff tore a hole in the ministry’s for the next decade, [9]according to the National Audit Office earlier this year . Meanwhile, the Army has [10]squandered billions trying and failing to buy new armoured vehicles , while the Navy has absorbed yet more billions for the two new aircraft carriers and supporting ships.
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Ominously, the new Digital Strategy for Defence document didn't mention the word “budget” once – but did say the MoD will be treating data as “the mineral ore that fuels integration and enables a system-of-systems approach”. This ore will be mined by a Digital Foundry ( er, are you sure they meant to say this? Ed. ) that will “unleash the power of Defence’s Data,” presumably by adding random capital letters to nouns.
Less prosaically, the MoD’s digital strategy boutique reckoned individual services are going to pay for all of this through “top-level budgetholder [TLB] equipment programmes.” Whether top commanders will be prepared to divert funds from pet projects into a central IT system remains to be seen.
Whatever the outcome of the jargon-laden document, it makes a change from “data is the new oil” and hackneyed old marketing spiel about data lakes. The full thing can be [12]read on the MoD website as a 41-page PDF. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/uk_ai_space_cyber_agency/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/nao_ministry_defence_budget_report_cyber/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/19/ministry_defence_tells_staff_dont_answer_census/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/uk_ai_space_cyber_agency/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YLETmqtRzoVWOghBQW@8vAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/nao_ministry_defence_budget_report_cyber/
[10] https://www.army-technology.com/news/mrv-p-review/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YLETmqtRzoVWOghBQW@8vAAAANE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/990114/20210421_-_MOD_Digital_Strategy_-_Update_-_Final.pdf
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Just a thought
Yes, and the more fragmented, the better. Last thing we should wish for is that they have it all on some seamless, leveraged, hyper-scalable easily accessible cloudy platform that every s'kiddie in China/Russia/Iran can understand, esp. some cloudy platform run by a foreign company. Perish the thought.
Re: Just a thought
Fragmented doesn't mean secure, unless you mean secure from being shared with other MOD staff. You can have a system that is easily accessible by all staff from within, and still secure enough from the outside. Costs a lot though.
Re: Just a thought
> We don't want some teen hacker accessing the polaris subs and playing wargames
They can access the Polaris subs all they like, I expect the MOD will care more about Trident and the Vanguard boats these days though...
Re: Just a thought
MOD is big enough that "external" often means another agency within the MOD and not the real outside world. It's sometimes hard to share information between different agencies of the MOD because those agencies might have their own IT systems, that don't talk with each other.
Re: Just a thought
Exactly my thoughts, don't most militaries like to compartmentalize information for "security" purposes.
After all it's much harder to deny the existence of all those black ops if they are easy to search
MoD will be treating data as “the mineral ore"
So they'll be dressing up as police officers and beating up striking IT workers mining the data?
Secure?
I fail to see how "secure" and "cloud-based" go together with each other.
Instead, this report would appear to be the equivalent of painting a target on the MOD's back and shouting "come and hack us" from the roof of MOD Whitehall.
Re: Secure?
That's why you have an AirForce - to protect the clouds !
Re: Secure?
But what if they won't let the riff-RAF in?
Re: Secure?
Precisely! Whose cloud and where are the servers?
The bits of the report mentioned in the article make it sound as though the MoD is recruiting direct from a dedicated MBA university or maybe Shoreditch.
Perhaps if they are looking for money they could start a crowd funder or try visiting a couple of VCs with a new tank.
Re: Secure?
>MoD is recruiting direct from a dedicated MBA university or maybe Shoreditch.
Cry havoc and release the Management Consultants of War
Re: Secure?
> Precisely! Whose cloud and where are the servers?
The MoDs.
The Army has (or maybe had?) it's own D/Cs in a couple of locations even >10 years ago, and all "cloud" projects were being migrated to servers there - not cloud in the way we tend to think of it, so much as genericised hosting, with workloads in VMs rather than tied to hardware.
Consultants might suggest spinning stuff up in AWS, but the services won't generally be happy with that. What you do see, though, is some level of infighting about whether it should be the Army, Navy or RAF who get the prestige of hosting anything that's used cross-service (logistics systems, obviously are one of those)
Re: Secure?
Cloud based doesn't necessarily mean internet hosted, it could be a MOD internal cloud based system.
Re: Secure?
Cloud based doesn't necessarily mean internet hosted
Do you honestly expect the rest of us to believe you could adequately explain that to both the MP's involved AND the senior brass of the UK military ?
Re: Secure?
No explanation needed, they've already been running things that way for well over a decade.
Strangely enough, they weren't happy with putting things into public clouds, even in the early days of them
Uhoh...
Sounds like this was written by people who don't understand the word "secure". MoD IT may be a pile of shite but that's because of the environment they have to operate in. I could tell you countless MoD fucks ups like REDACTED or when REDACTED or that time REDACTED. etc.
Buzzword bingo bozos meet immovable object time and after 2 years of work and countless millions get wasted on project soopadoopa, it'll get quietly dropped.
Re: Uhoh...
Fair due, how would they understand since all the IT contractors left several years ago? MoD now has a few contractors inside IR35 getting ripped off by seedy offshore umbrella companies and producing rubbish products*
* https://www.contracts.mod.uk is a good example. Why not have a website that lists every API call you use within its response headers?
Azure Secret
Was there not a story here a few months ago saying that MS could now supply an Azure tenant at the secret level for DoD in the US?
In English, the verb is "to lever"
So that phrase would correctly read, "for Defence to lever Digital and our Data."
Which means there is a large mass of Digital to be moved by Defence and the fulcrum is... oh! I do believe it is all nonsense!
Four F-35s in that picture
Didn't know we had that many.
Just a thought
I'd of thought that MOD stuff not being on the internet i.e. along with data being locked inside “internal and contractual silos” making it “hard to access and integrate”. would be a good thing from a security perspective. We don't want some teen hacker accessing the polaris subs and playing wargames. Good hacking film.