Developmental Test, Evaluation and Assessment
About the Office of Developmental Test, Evaluation and Assessment
Operational Resilience in Cyberspace
- DTE&A assists DoW programs and test authorities to understand and implement current policy and guidance concerning cybersecurity and the cyber survivability endorsement for the System Survivability Key Performance Parameter.
- DoWIs 5000.89 and 8500.01 establish the requirement to conduct cybersecurity DT&E of DoW systems to support assessments of cybersecurity, survivability, and resilience within a mission context.
- Cyber DT&E is required of all DoW systems and services, including:
- Pre-acquisition program technologies and systems (e.g., science and technology and prototype development for eventual insertion into DoW networks, systems, and platforms).
- Acquisition systems under the DoWD 5205.07.
- Systems acquired via the Defense Acquisition System, including abbreviated acquisition programs under the US Navy or US Marine Corps and acquisitions pursuing any adaptive acquisition framework pathway in accordance with DoWD 5000.01 and DoWI 5000.02.
- Systems in sustainment, or post productions systems, when those systems have software, hardware, mission, or other changes as outlined in DoWM 5000.UY.
When planning for cyber DT&E, by either the contractor or the government, establish a cyber working group to start early and iterate planning, preparing, executing, evaluating, and reporting cyber DT&E.
During planning, six recurring scoping activities inform the cyber DT&E strategy:
MBCRAs use the results of the other planning activities as depicted in the critical MBCRA elements diagram:
Cyber DT&E Activities
Follow the policy and guidance to scope iterative testing to find, fix, and verify fixes. Cyber DT&E activities support data generation for independent evaluation of the measurable and testable cyber performance requirements for the system under tests' ability to:
- Prevent cyberspace events from causing the failure of mission or safety critical functions or operational mission impacts.
- Detect anomalies caused by cyberspace events.
- Determine the cause of the anomaly, system misconfigurations, or design flaws.
- Report facts about the cyberspace event sufficient to mitigate the anomaly or design flaw to a responsible entity, which may be a non-person entity.
- Enable the entity to mitigate the reported anomaly both during and after the operational mission.
- Recover from the loss of mission or safety critical functions and maintain operational resilience throughout the life cycle.
Use results of government cyber DT&E to inform program acquisition decisions, RMF security control assessments, risk and authorization decisions, and cyber operational T&E planning.
DTE&A sponsors the collaborative Cyber Developmental Test Cross Service Working Group (CyberDT XSWG) to promote, develop, and enhance cyber DT&E in the DoW. The CyberDT XSWG holds Service led monthly virtual sessions and semi-annual in person working groups. Contact the DTE&A cyber team to participate, OSDRE-DTEA-Cyber@groups.mail.mil.
Joint Cyber Community of Practice (JC COP)
The Joint Cyber Community of Practice (JC COP) is a USW(A&S) and USW(R&E) co-sponsored, bi-weekly lecture series of cyber-centered presentations to engineering, acquisition, and other stakeholders across the Department of War (DoW). The purpose is to share changing cyber survivability and operational resilience practices, policies, and guidance; introduce new tools, processes, and ideas, and unify cyber-related acquisition efforts across the DoW to deliver survivable and resilient systems to the warfighter.
DT&E Products
Below are links to DTE&A cyber developed or managed guidance, research, websites, and other information.
Cyber DT&E Guidebook Version 3 Appendix L
(CUI) (CAC only)
Cyber DT&E of Artificial Intelligence Enabled Systems
Online Appendix to Cyber DT&E Guidebook Version 3
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OUSW(R&E)
The Pentagon
Office of the Under Secretary of War,
Research and Engineering (OUSW(R&E))
3030 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-3030