FireSky FX: Edge-Deployed Cyber Effects Platform

Cyber-enabled Air Superiority (CEAS)—achieving air superiority through tactical cyber effects—is a vital Air Force requirement.  Lt. Gen. Leah G. Lauderback, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Cyber Effects Operations, underscored the urgency of CEAS, stating “Air superiority [is] the function that we absolutely know that the Air Force presents... there’s a tactical cyber capability that we might be able to develop... that is a growth area for sure,” Despite this, no integrated CEAS platform currently exists. Without such a platform, the Air Force’s ability to achieve CEAS is severely constrained. While numerous enterprise cyber platforms, such as Crowdstrike, Darktrace, Metasploit, Metasponse, and Microsoft Security Copilot, are available, they are designed for centralized, stable enterprise networks—not for aircraft operating at the tactical edge.  FireSky is Grier’s commercially available cyber platform, built from the ground up for airborne networks.  FireSky has proven itself in the austere, low resource, limited networks that aircraft operate under, providing cyber threat intelligence, autonomous response, situational awareness, and C2.  FireSky enables aircraft and ground units to identify and defeat a spectrum of threats and has proven itself under third party testing, successfully operating over waveforms and datalinks built for aerospace. The proposed effort will evolve FireSky into a fully modular, open-architecture, cyber effects platform—FireSky FX—meeting Air Force needs for an edge-deployed, airworthy, tactical CEAS platform, capable of operating across the spectrum of networks and channels.  The result: A platform to coordinate, control, launch, and assess cyber effects, in the air, space, or ground, achieving cyber-enabled air superiority and tactical air dominance.