[ed] If you know anything about IDS and best practice... my retitling of this article makes sense.[/ed]

U.S. weapons manufacturer Raytheon announced that it and allied firms have landed a $28m deal from the Pentagon to provide an early-warning system for defense against cyber attacks on military networks.

The programme in question is referred to by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) as “Network Operations Situational Awareness” or NetOps SA. Overall the purpose of NetOps SA seems to be to act as a kind of early-warning screen for network-defence sysadmin cyberwarriors, letting them know at once when the hats of a different colour begin to probe and meddle with their networks.

NetOps SA is just one of the netwar systems the agency intends to procure in coming years, under the general slogan “Arming the Cyber Warrior”.

According to DISA, NetOps SA will primarily use two “classified thin client web applications” known as the Global Information Grid Customizable Operational Picture (GIGCOP) and the User-Defined Operational Picture (CND UDOP). The new NetOps SA deal with Raytheon will see these tools integrated into one system and further developed.

Raytheon seem to be having a bit of a push into cyberwar gear at the moment, having recently unveiled their SureView™ "government insider threat management" spy- or mole-sniffer tech to an astonished world.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/10/raytheon_netops_sa_deal/