4 Military Cybersecurity Governance



With the dawn of the U.S. Cyber Space Command a new era has been ushered into our collective.  It is no longer safe to assume that our enemies only threaten us with conventional weapons.  No.  The new weapon of choice by many nations are found in the cyber space realm.  These weapons, or tools rather, can be used to deceive, manipulate and extract information in order to give foreign governments a perceived advantage over us.  Military leaders face many challenges in combating threats from cyber space.  None more challenging than the thorough understanding of the actual threat.
In order to understand the threat, one must appreciate that not all threats are equal in nature nor motivated by the same ideals.  Threats may be espionage, subversion, sabotage, cybercrime, and to an extent cyberwar.  Differences between these threats are minimal once inside a system and amount to nothing more than a few different keystrokes.  However noting the differences is important in regards to choosing the proper response to a threat.  In all cases, a military response may not be warranted over a legal one.  It’s the using a bazooka to kill a fly scenario.
The structure of the military makes it appealing for governments to allow for the governance of cybersecurity and use of military response.  Sometimes this may not be the best case though.  The over-dependence in the military may de-incentivize the private sector to come up with long term solutions.  Furthermore, the military should be collaborated with in regards to cybersecurity with the understanding that the primary mission is to defend the nation from physical attacks and invasions.
Militarizing cyber security defenses would also bring about negative consequences.  It would hand over complete control of the country to the one entity that private citizens could not over throw.  Fully in charge of all things cyber related, the military would have carte blanche to do as they pleased in regards to surveillance on the private sector as well as other nations.  A democratic system of checks and balances also bodes well in cyber space.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

11 The Summary

11             The theme for my blog is/was cyber-security in the military.   I chose this theme for two reasons.   One, having experienced first-hand the efforts on the part of the military against cyber-threats, I found it intriguing.      Not to mention the fact that around the time we were establishing blogs there were two maritime collisions involving Naval warships.   And two, I wanted to explore the viability of the efforts being made to protect military networks, and examine for correlations between the collisions and any possible criminal activity by external actors seeking to cause dissention amongst the ranks.   My blog contains an eclectic mix of cyber-security related stories to those that have the potential to impact not only members of the military, but the private sector as well.   Also, my week 9 blog post was one of the more enjoyable posts to write having benefited fr...
Read more

10 Air Force IDS Testing Pioneers

10             Given this week’s lesson on Intrusion Detection Systems I thought it apt to discuss military testing of such systems.   In my research, I came across a paper written by Terrence Champion, a research scientist at the Air Force INFOSEC Research Lab in Hanscom, MA, and Robert Durst, a former Air Force security programmer turned research scientist for SenCom supporting the AFRL.   These two gentlemen are nothing more than pioneers in the way that military began testing IDS’s in the late nineties.   With the help of UC Santa Barbara, they were able to develop a test bed in which to test and analyze some of the early ID systems that were being introduced.   Their test bed consisted of a virtual network which simulated the complexities of a MAN and through the utilization of software, used to assign arbitrary source protocol addresses to individual sessions, were able to recreate the type of traffi...
Read more

1 Fitzgerald and McCain investigation show zero cyber intrusion possibilities

1 The preliminary investigation into the collision of the USS Fitzgerald, which resulted in the loss of seven Sailors and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, has wrapped up.  At this time, zero evidence of cyber attack or intrusion has been found.  Navy Admiral John Richardson originally tweeted that " there may have been indications of cyber intrusion", however the Navy is still looking into all possibilities. Richardson went on to say during a live-streamed all-hands call via Facebook that "an amazing amount of attention" was being devoted to the investigations into the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions.  Again, no evidence has surfaced to corroborate these statements. This is the world that we are currently in ladies and gentlemen.  No longer are the far-fetched schemes of James Bond henchmen relegated to the silver screen.  They are now a possibility.  With our lives becoming more and more entwined with technology, the ever growing threat...
Read more