cyber command Archives

That's the word I'm picking up based on a combination of some good intel and speculation by more than a handful of knowledgeable gadget and gizmo graybeards.

It would make sense for Cyber Command -- charged with network defense and attack -- to take over the Defense Information Systems Agency, which operates Defense global networks.

But for this deal to happen, the newly formed Cyber Command would have to get acquisition authority from Congress, which DISA and the Cyber Command lacks, and probably will not happen overnight.

I also hear that once again Cyber Command has its eyes on DISA's spiffy new HQ at Fort Meade in Maryland. Yeah, the building is larger than what Cyber Command needs, but tell me of any Defense outfit that has shrunk lately.

In his testimony given before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, cited Apple's iPad, which costs $499 and up, as an example of the challenges the nation faces as it attempts to operate in a global and amorphous cyber space.

Alexander, who bought an iPad shortly after Apple put it on the market in April, told the hearing the device illustrates advances in technology during the past two decades. "Its capability surpasses
that of even NASA computers of 20 years ago," he said.

The iPad packs millions of lines of code into a consumer product, Alexander said, which may help understand "the complexity of our new world and the ways in which our economy and society have shifted to an information culture, where wealth is less and less rooted in the physical ability to manipulate objects than it is in the knowledge of how those objects work together."

The information economy has a lot of bad actors, who can also afford technology, he said. Alexander views the best cyber defense is one based on culture and procedures, rather than technology.

"Purely technological advantages are likely to be fewer and less lasting in our networked world," he said. "Our advantage has to lie in how we put these tools together in systems, especially systems of people, protocols and machines that can operate reliably together at high speeds to identify vulnerabilities, share information, assess risks, devise countermeasures and apply new solutions," without providing details.

What's next? An iPad cyber defense app?

Earlier this year, I reported that the Air Force planned to pony up $104 million from its 2011 budget to fund development of the new headquarters of the U.S. Cyber Command at Ft. Meade, Md.

I thought that was rather generous of the Air Force, since the service had lost out on its two year fight to own the cyber mission.

But the Air Force may be off the hook for the Cyber Command HQ if language in the conference report on the House version of the 2011 Military Construction/Veterans Affairs appropriations bill makes it through the legislative mill.

That bill says the Air Force had allocated $564 million in its budget for new facilities for the U.S. Strategic Command - which runs the Cyber Command - as well as "an unspecified but probably large requirement to provide new facilities " for the Cyber Command.

The House report said the Air Force should not have to bear this burden on its own, and urged the Defense Department to provide the funds for the new headquarters from its overall budget.

Meanwhile, the Air Fore still get points for playing nice with the other children, which may have been the purpose of its generosity to begin with.

Bob Brewin is on vacation and will return to writing What's Brewin' later this month.

Wired's Danger Room blog has a fun contest that Nextgov readers should take a serious look at -- especially cyber specialists.

The logo for the Defense Department's new Cyber Command has a mysterious series of numbers and letters on the gold ring: 9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a.
It's being described as code -- at least that's what an inside source at the Cyber Command told Danger Room, which asks readers to post what they believe the code means.

Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the head of the new U.S. Cyber Command, estimates that bad actors now probe Defense Department networks and systems 250,000 times an hour -- or some 6 million times a day. Or this: 2.19 billion times a year.

Alexander, who also runs the National Security Agency in his spare time, said in a speech on Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that operations in cyberspace have become a critical element of national and military power and protecting the networks is essential to national security.

Based on statistics Alexander presented, the number of probes Defense experiences a day almost matches the number of military computers, some 7 million machines connected to 15,000 networks, with 21 satellite gateways and 20,000 commercial circuits.

Alexander said that at the moment "our front line defenses are up to this challenge." But he said he has concerns about threats to network security from a growing array of foreign actors, terrorists, criminal groups and individual hackers.

"Our data must be protected. . . . We have an enormous challenge ahead of us as a nation, as a department and as a command," he said.

In the most startling act of generosity of the year, the Air Force plans to pony up $104 million for the new headquarters of the U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Md., in its fiscal 2011 budget.

That nugget of information is contained in the prepared budget testimony that Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz delivered to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

"In support of the national cyber effort, this budget request dedicates $104 million to support operations and leased space for headquarters staff at the sub-unified U.S. Cyber Command," the testimony noted.

I thought this was quite collegial of the Air Force because the service had spent a couple of years trying to own the cyber mission only to lose it to the U.S. Strategic Command, which will set up the command.

So I called the Air Force press desk in the Pentagon to check if the service had engaged in this act of fiscal largesse or if the $104 million line item was for Air Force cyber space at Fort Meade.

Capt. Joel Harper, an Air Force spokesman, ran my query past the green eye-shade folks, and he told me that, yes, the Air Force plans to fund the new Cyber HQ from its budget and that it was indeed a generous act.

In return, I think Cyber Command should allow widespread use of Air Force blue throughout its new building and invite the service's band to play "Into the Wild Blue Yonder" at the dedication ceremony.

Here are the top 10 most read What's Brewin blog items in 2009, in order:

1. U.S. Cyber Command -- The Wiring Diagram
2. VA Gets Real, Suspends 45 IT Projects
3. Juicy Reports on VA IT Shop Coming
4. The Final Four for VHA Job
5. VA Claim in Appeal? Wait 639 Days
6. Another Stolen Laptop
7. The Three Star Navy Cyber Command
8. Tax-Free Computers For College Students
9. Park Police: Don't Shine That Brass
10. How to Bury $187 Million

Navy meteorologists and oceanographers might not consider themselves cyber warriors, but they are going to be lumped into a new Navy Information Dominance Corps established by Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, on Oct. 6.

The new corps, according to a Roughead memo, which a kind soul sent me, will pull most of its personnel from traditional information and intelligence disciplines, including information warfare and intelligence officers, and enlisted intelligence, information technology personnel as well as cryptology technicians. The dominance outfit also will include civilian personnel who work in these fields, Roughhead said.

The corps was created, Roughead said, "to more effectively and collaboratively lead and manage a cadre of officers, enlisted and civilian professionals who possess extensive skills in information-intensive fields.

"This corps of professionals will receive extensive training, education and work experience in information, intelligence, counterintelligence, human-derived information, networks, space and oceanographic disciplines. This corps will develop and deliver dominant information capabilities in support of U.S. Navy, Joint and national warfighting requirements."

In a speech last week, Roughead estimated that the new corps will eventually have 45,000 military and civilian personnel under its command.

That's not all folks. I also have learned the Navy is setting up a Cyber Force which will train and equip all of the above folks, who will ultimately work for the Fleet Cyber Command and the U.S. Cyber Command at Ft. Meade, Md.

Neither the corps nor the Navy Cyber Forces Command have a logo or badge yet, but a Navy source told me the service is working on it.

A benevolent reader sent along a a high level organizational diagram for the U.S. Cyber Command, which I am going to share with everyone out there in Whats-land.

Click on image for full PowerPoint slide

There are no real surprises in this very busy slide, but it does illustrate clearly that the real work of the new Cyber Command -- which goes into business next month -- will be performed by an Integrated Cyber Center run by a Joint Operations Center, with a lot of help from the Defense Information Systems Agency.