U.S. Military Wants to Exert Influence Over Private Cyber Infrastructure Network World (08/26/10) Greene, Tim
as it appeared in the August 27, 2010 edition of ACM TechNews.
The U.S. military wants more authority to protect the nation's cyberinfrastructure, says Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn. He says the military depends on power grids, transportation networks, and financial network systems to manage suppliers and that these networks could become military targets. "The best-laid plans for defending military networks will matter little if civilian infrastructure--which could be directly targeted in a military conflict or held hostage and used as a bargaining chip against the U.S. government--is not secure," Lynn says. "The Pentagon is therefore working with the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector to look for innovative ways to use the military's cyberdefense capabilities to protect the defense industry." The National Security Agency is developing some of these safeguards, which include combining U.S. intelligence capabilities with network security so that networks can respond to threats identified by other means than network intrusion detection tools. The Pentagon also is relying on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to devise the means to make Pentagon network infrastructure less prone to cyberattacks. View Full Article
