Lockheed Martin’s Army Cyber Training Platform Goes Civilian

Locheed Martin has bagged a government contract to train 17,000 remote US Army civilian employees on security readiness, and wants to also extend the offer to private entities.

The defense contractor will supply the Army’s Civilian Career Management Activity with its new Mission Readiness and Reporting (MR2) platform, which was originally designed for the US military’s Joint Cyber Command and Control ecosystem. 

Lockheed Martin describes MR2 as “a simple concept” that operates similarly to other cloud-based management applications and displays data “as a customizable dashboard that monitors the capacity of personnel, teams, equipment and infrastructure.” 

MR2 is also able to synchronize data between the military’s segmented classified and non-classified communication networks and “allows cyber operators to get a full view of capability and skill levels across the entire workforce, removing the need to consult multiple systems and networks,” Lockheed Martin said. 

For the Army’s civilian application, MR2 will be used to train employees in best practices “according to an individual’s capabilities,” while continually monitoring training statuses and providing predictive analysis for future mission needs.

Tish Rourke, Lockheed Martin’s VP of cyber and intelligence, claimed MR2 “connects cyber training and mission readiness and ensures that the civilian cyber workforce is agile, resilient and ahead of the threat.”

As part of its deal with the Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin is pairing with third parties including IT consulting and training firm Ultimate Knowledge Institute and cybersecurity business Aries Security to provide web-based training tools. AWS govCloud will be used to host the whole operation, and Lockheed Martin will use MR2 to analyze data from training in a bid to address workforce skills development.

While currently only supporting training for up to 17,000 civilian Army employees, Lockheed Martin said the system can scale to track up to 100,000 personnel. Rourke said MR2 isn’t reliant on native systems and that “customers will be able to preserve systems they use while stepping forward in digital transformation.”

According to Lockheed Martin, MR2 can be scaled to serve industries like healthcare, education and commerce, which might be handy given the state of security attacks on those industries. 

Healthcare organizations, for example, saw ransomware attacks double between 2020 and 2021, while the insurance and finance industries have also seen a hike in incidents. ®

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