Global protective services company BlueHalo recently revealed it secured a $30.3 million contract with the Missile Defense Agency(MDA (News - Alert)) to develop a cloud-based security monitoring platform.

The recent surge in cloud adoption in the business world has somewhat shadowed the true potential of the technology. Although cloud technology is certainly useful for distributed data storage, remote/hybrid access, and other notable business applications, it is also a valuable resource for military operations and national security measures.

As part of the contract, BlueHalo will utilize funding to monitor, identify,target and engage threats with the support of a cloud-based platform. Blue Halo will conduct research related to the project through 2025. The contract is part of an ongoing initiative by the MDA to find defense applications for emerging technologies.

Investing in cloud-based resources for threat-detection purposes is essentially becoming a requirement in the digital age, especially due to the recent spike in cybercrime during the pandemic. Although cloud adoption has generally been a strength for monitoring suspicious activity in real time, the over-dependence on digital infrastructure has inspired cyber criminals everywhere to devise more sophisticated attacks.

From a national security standpoint, investing in a cloud platform will certainly be beneficial for quicker decision making and improved understanding of serious national and global threats. However, additional measures must be implemented  to ensure these systems are completely impenetrable from global hackers, as bad actors will try their best to compromise cloud activity.