Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said recently that the military is recruiting 2,000 to 4,000 cyberwarriors for a special force involved in both cyber defense and the more secret mission of conducting offensive network attacks against foreign computer and electronic systems.
The current acronym-heavy structure is part of the Strategic Command's Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO), which defends the Pentagon's critical Global Information Grid domestically and around the world from the tens of thousands of attempted electronic penetrations every day.
The second element is the Joint Functional Component Command Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), which will wage cyber war against foreign enemies, for example, breaking into a foreign military's network and electronically sabotaging weapons systems so they won't operate.
"In the future, we're looking at how we can combine those two into a single organization," Gen. Chilton told defense reporters May 7.
The Pentagon is planning a subunified command for cyber warfare and defenses that is expect to be part of Strategic Command, which also is in charge of nuclear warfare planning and execution.
Gen. Chilton said the main threat to defense computer systems to date has been mainly "espionage type of work" involving the theft of information.
"That's what's happening today. Now the semantics of attack versus espionage and intrusion, we can argue about that," he said.
The four-star general noted that a foreign high-altitude spy plane overflying the country would not be considered an attack on the United States, although as a sovereign state the U.S. government reserves the right to shoot it down.
Violations of sovereignty in cyberspace are difficult questions for the military to address, such as when are cyber and kinetic counterattacks permitted, and Strategic Command is studying how to respond to espionage and computer intrusions "in time of conflict," Gen. Chilton said.
No comments:
Post a Comment