Defense Cyber Chief: Military Data Safest in the CloudNovember 04, 2011
 The military must look to the cloud to protect is computers, the Pentagon's network chief said. Gen. Keith Alexander, chief of U.S. Cyber Command, appeared before computer security officials and executives from both government and commercial industries at a conference in Washington, DC., according to an article in NextGov. In the current setup, all military data is on three main systems. Each system has various levels of security and requirements, making it easier for hackers to find ways in, the article noted. Pentagon officials want centralize these far-flung networks into a single infrastructure to make it easier to uniformly protect it from malicious code. This single point of entry would connect personnel to data-centers, or the cloud. But having that single point of entry is easier to secure than having multiple systems. Alexander called moving to the cloud an "active defense." He noted that the cloud is a stronger shield because people can more quickly realize and react to signs of intrusions. He said that most intrusions on the current systems are not detected for six to nine months after the initial break-in, according to the NextGov article. "I believe Gen. Alexander was right. You can't contain cyber in a box," Jaak Aaviksoo, Estonia's former defense minister who was attending the conference, told NextGov. Russia is suspected of disrupting Estonia's government and commercial systems in 2007. "You have to reach out in a proactive way." Intruders have mostly stolen sensitive commercial and military intellectual property, but Alexander said that the damage is likely to be felt in the physical realm soon, too. Attackers could direct systems that control U.S. infrastructure to malfunction in ways that could result in destruction, NextGov reported. |
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