NSA EDGES OUT OTHERS IN CYBER COMMAND CONTROL (Defense Tech)

NSA EDGES OUT OTHERS IN CYBER COMMAND CONTROL

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004907.html

Last week Defense Secretary Robert Gatesordered U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) to deliver a plan to stand-up a new command to oversee information technology security and attack – what would be known as "Cyber Command." This is in addition to President Obama's announcement last month that he will establish a new cyber security office at theWhite House. The historic event took place on Tuesday, June 22nd.

As one could imagine, this is no small task. StratCom has just a little over sixty days to accomplish this mission. The plan to create this new entity operating within the Department of Defense and lead by a 4-star general is due to the Defense Secretary by September 1st. According to Gates' timeline, Cyber Command is expected to be up and operational by October 1, 2009, and fully functional one year later. An internal memo from Gates to senior Pentagon officials stated that he intends to recommend that Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the current director of the National Security Agency, take on the role as commander of the Cyber Command with the rank of a four-star general.

What this will actually cost is anyone's guess. Current thinking is that the budget to just establish the new command through year's end could reach as high as $200 million. Longer term, the cost of cyber intelligence, defense and offensive capabilities are estimated to be around $55 billion annually. This will create our offensive cyber forces and capabilities and defend the over 100,000 DoD Networks and 5 million DoD computers against cyber attack. One might say it is just a drop in the bucket of a 2009 DoD budget that topped $515 billion.

The United States is not the only country making this move. The UK defense ministry announced plans to establish an office of cyber attack and defense but gave no hard date when it would be operational. Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters, their equivalent of the NSA) seems to be well underway in fully developing their cyber capabilities. In addition, the defense ministry of South Korea has also announced plans to establish a cyber command by 2012.

Internal cooperation is critical for cyber incident investigations and event attribution. As more and more countries establish a focal point for cyber defense, the greater the opportunity to conduct these investigations and accurately identify those behind cyber attacks.

-- Kevin Coleman

StratCom Plows Ahead on Cyber (DoD Buzz)

StratCom Plows Ahead on Cyber

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/06/29/stratcom-plows-ahead-on-cyber/

By Colin Clark Monday, June 29th, 2009 11:51 am

You are the commander of Strategic Command, charged with coming up with an implementation plan for the new cyber command within 60 days. But there's going to be a new head of cyber command, a four-star just like you, and Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander has the Big Mo on his side. And Alexander is known as an almost crazily foxy guy who has rebuilt the NSA and will be largely dependent on folks from NSA for most of his capabilities. Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton is known as one of the brainiest generals around. Hmmm. Who's going to win this bureaucratic game will be great fun to watch.

For some idea of just what may lie ahead, have a look at this April 7 speech by Chilton, which has been quoted by the two cyber warriors with whom I speak. This is not about improving the country's IT capabilities in terms of efficiency and information sharing. This is about life and death on the battlefield.

"It's not a convenience any more, it's a dependency. We need to recognize that we need this domain and we need these systems to conduct our fight today and tomorrow. We need to recognize that we can fight in this domain just as an air-to-air fighter can fight in the air domain; and we can fight through this domain and affect other domains just as an airplane can drop a bomb on a land domain and create affects across a domain. And as commanders we must appreciate the vulnerability of this domain, not just its importance. We have to transition from a culture of convenience to a culture of responsibility. We must recognize vulnerability — the vulnerability that one system can create here on the other side of the world, not just locally," Chilton said. For more on this, have a look at Kevin Coleman's piece below from Defense Tech.

Last week Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) to deliver a plan to stand-up a new command to oversee information technology security and attack – what would be known as "Cyber Command." This is in addition to President Obama's announcement last month that he will establish a new cyber security office at the White House. The historic event took place on Tuesday, June 22nd.

As one could imagine, this is no small task. StratCom has just a little over sixty days to accomplish this mission. The plan to create this new entity operating within the Department of Defense and lead by a 4-star general is due to the Defense Secretary by September 1st. According to Gates' timeline, Cyber Command is expected to be up and operational by October 1, 2009, and fully functional one year later. An internal memo from Gates to senior Pentagon officials stated that he intends to recommend that Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the current director of the National Security Agency, take on the role as commander of the Cyber Command with the rank of a four-star general.

What this will actually cost is anyone's guess. Current thinking is that the budget to just establish the new command through year's end could reach as high as $200 million. Longer term, the cost of cyber intelligence, defense and offensive capabilities are estimated to be around $55 billion annually. This will create our offensive cyber forces and capabilities and defend the over 100,000 DoD Networks and 5 million DoD computers against cyber attack. One might say it is just a drop in the bucket of a 2009 DoD budget that topped $515 billion.

The United States is not the only country making this move. The UK defense ministry announced plans to establish an office of cyber attack and defense but gave no hard date when it would be operational. Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters, their equivalent of the NSA) seems to be well underway in fully developing their cyber capabilities. In addition, the defense ministry of South Korea has also announced plans to establish a cyber command by 2012.

Internal cooperation is critical for cyber incident investigations and event attribution. As more and more countries establish a focal point for cyber defense, the greater the opportunity to conduct these investigations and accurately identify those behind cyber attacks.

New command at tip of DoD cyber spear, Lt. Gen. Alexander says (Federal News Radio)

New command at tip of DoD cyber spear, Lt. Gen. Alexander says

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=35&sid=1705302

With Defense Secretary Robert Gates announcement Tuesday of the new cyber command, senior officials from all four branches reacted with a mixture of relief and expectation.

"There is an awful lot of confusion in this complex environment," says Maj. Gen. Greg Schumacher, assistant to the deputy chief of staff for the Army G-2. "What I'm most looking forward to is having a single voice to articulate definitions, roles, missions and how we will conduct the missions, and that will enable us to be far more efficient and effective than previously to conduct operations."

Maj. Gen. David Senty, the Air Force's acting vice commander of the provisional cyberspace command and commander of network operations, says the DoD-wide office will make policy and procedures more seamless and consistent across the military.

Navy Rear Admiral-select Sean Filipowski, director of computer network operations at the Network Warfare Command, says the new command will provide better command and control for cyberspace, and a single point of accountability to sort out DoD's cyber mission.

And finally Ray Letteer, the chief for the Marine Corps Information Assurance Division, says the cyber command provides a much needed authoritative voice in cyberspace.

"We have trained individuals and we know how to defend the network," he says. "To be able to have a clear delineation of a fire control cell to tell us when we are suppose to go hot and when we are suppose to not [will be good] . We do that with artillery and air power, I'm looking forward to see same type of thing in cyber domain."

These were some of the reactions of the panelists at the AFCEA Cybersecurity conference in Washington Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, summed up the plans around the new cyber command, saying this was Gates's way of making cyberspace a priority for all of DoD.

"When you think about what don't we have, if the point of integration for those [cyber] functions is me, we are in a hurt," he says. "Where is the staff that brings it all together? [The command] integrates it seamlessly so that in DoD you can operate smoothly between your network operations, the defense, the exploit and the attack as you need to. And you have the rules of engagement laid out, and where is the staff to do that? We don't have the staff do that. The secretary of Defense is putting its commitment there. To the department, this is hugely important."

Alexander, who likely will be the head of the new subcommand, says the constant attack on DoD networks is overwhelming. He says there are 4,000 terrorist Web sites, and DoD's networks face 32,000 attacks a day from more than 100 countries.

"How do we defend our network?" he asks. "The way we've done it in the past, telling systems administrators to set patches and defense against what do know, but not against what we don't know, is not working."

Alexander says there is no common defense across DoD. The network operations and defense are stovepipes, left to defense themselves without enough capabilities.

"Step one is to put that together and come up with mechanisms to do it," he says. "Set up a real time capability to have tipping and cueing between those sensors that is a global cryptological system that is seeing bad things happen and [telling the] defensive folks who are out there."

He adds that the command's goal is to come up with the techniques and procedures to defend the network in an active way and build mechanisms for the services to plug into.

"We got to give the network operators the right security clearance so they can get the right level of threat," he says. "So they can see what that threat is and they know why they have to defend against them."

He says the services will operate their networks with the cyber command having visibility and ability to direct parts of them.

For this reason, Alexander says the cyber workforce across all of DoD must have the same knowledge and skills.

"We've got to have a common block of training for all people operate in cyberspace-for our defenders, our operators, our exploiters and our attackers," Alexander says. "We have to make sure everyone understands the basics of network operations: how defending, exploiting and attacking works together."

Alexander was clear that getting DoD's networks better secured is the command's foremost mission. He realizes DoD will work with the Homeland Security Department and industry to help secure .gov and .com networks, but the .mil domain needs to be addressed first.

"We are on a journey and this will be difficult because there is a lot we need to do to get these networks together," he says. "I'm optimistic about the future, about where we are going, what we can do, the capabilities we have."