USAF Cyber Command (catch all)

[selil]

This could have been a much better story if it wasn't dropping into the realm of scare tactics. Though the criticism is likely warranted, with all the money that has spent, the paradigm of information assurance and security hasn't changed much.

Though simplistic the analogy is we designed the auto industry, but we've fallen behind everybody else who are now driving George Jetson air scooters.

I hate to say it but some of the under current of this article supports the idea that maybe culturally we will never be able to secure of utilize cyber space it is just to much of a change at this time.

More at the link

Former White House cyber-security and anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke isn't known as a fan of the current administration, but political loyalties aside, the expert claims that the president's new initiative aimed at bolstering the nation's electronic infrastructure is fundamentally flawed.

Speaking at the inaugural Source Boston security conference, Clarke expressed his concerns over the national electronic security initiative signed by Bush on Jan. 8.

While the measure has yet to be detailed by the White House publicly, the Washington rumor mill is already circulating many details of the strategy and Clarke said the plan won't have the effect that the president's advisors are hoping for.

The two major thrusts of the Bush mandate, according to Clarke, are aimed at better securing the government's own computing and communications networks, and adopting a more proactive approach to engaging in cyber-warfare.

In both cases, the plan may in fact serve to weaken U.S. security and privacy efforts, he said.

As Clarke sees it, the biggest flaw in the portion of the measure devoted to protecting government computing operations is a lack of recognition that most of those systems run on the same infrastructure, and through the same carriers, as the rest of the nation's Internet traffic.

"There's the idea that somehow these are government networks that we're talking about, but they really aren't, all these government sites are running through the same network of routers and the same fiber channels as everything else, there's no segmentation on these carrier networks," Clarke said. "This means that [the plan's authors] either don't know that and merely think they need to reinforce security on state-owned servers, or data in their own facilities, in which case thy are missing most of the problem, or that they plan to do monitoring of everything going through the carriers' systems."

If it is the latter, than Americans will need to prepare for a world where they have far less privacy in terms of their ability to access the Web without the potential for government observation, he said.

Much more HERE

[selil]

Slashdot does not reflect the "hacker" culture but they most definitely reflect the YUG's (young uppity geeks). The "I can argue about Play Station, X-Box, and Wii, and PWN you", group is unfortunately where Air Force Cyber Command will likely start pulling recruits.

For the rest of us I'd look at the language of this and think about the "close air support" role end the effectiveness of the Air Force in dealing with other services. Then I would suggest to the higher up in each of the other forces to think about the Air Force determining the linkages of all the command and control (as in their words) they are the leader in cyber-space.

Enjoy the interview some of the questions are quite well thought out. Others show the standard audience of Slashdot (which includes me!!!)

For a view into the heck of geekdom follow the link.

Slashdot interview with Air Force General Link

[selil]

Military commanders should consider reports like this and think back to what does it mean if the enemy has access to all of your deepest military secrets. Consider the tightening of public disclosures of information and the rampant use of states secrets to secure data. Then balance that on the wholesale loss of control of massive amounts of data (or minimal dos it matter?).

Don't fall for the fear mongering that most security analysts would drive change or new initiatives with instead consider how simplistic the attacks are (trojan in an email for example). Almost no security service that does not degrade capability and uniformly degrade information technology services is going to work without people not doing stupid things.

When you think about all of the intersections between information technology services and the command and control infrastructure (technical or not) the issue rapidly becomes not when it will be attacked (peace or war), but how and how much it will be attacked. The same way telegraph wires were cut in WW1 (denial of service), the same way encryption was broken (confidentiality), and the same way that information operations injected errors in the enemy command and control (integrity).

I wonder where you can find people who know how to fight asymmetric attacks against large infrastructures and political organizations?



Original Article Here

On June 22, 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that the Pentagon's network had been successfully attacked the previous Wednesday, and that this attack was responsible for a disruption in email service to some 1,500 Pentagon employees. At the time, Gates downplayed the attack, saying that it affected only the OSD's (Office of the Secretary of Defense) non-classified e-mail service and that there was "no anticipated adverse impact on ongoing operations." It seems that the adverse impact of the June attack may have been much greater than Gates' early guidance implied. According to a top DoD technology official quoted at GovernmentExecutive.com, the thieves behind that attack seized an "amazing amount" of data.

New details on the attack itself have become available in the months since it occurred. According to Dennis Clem, CIO of the Pentagon and the OSD, the intrusion was first detected during an IT restructuring that was underway at the time. By the time it was detected, malicious code had been in the system for at least two months, and was propagating via a known Windows exploit. The bug spread itself by e-mailing malicious payloads from one system on the network to another. The messages themselves were spoofed and appeared to be legitimate missives from other employees. Once the recipient opened an infected e-mail, the worm sent that person's password and other login credentials back to home base.

The government isn't saying what, exactly, got stolen. There's no evidence to contradict Secretary Gates' claim that the classified e-mail system remained unaffected, but data that Clem describes as "sensitive" was accessed and encrypted before being transmitted to the hackers' location. As for where that location might be, unconfirmed reports point towards China's People's Liberation Army. China, of course, has vehemently denied any knowledge or responsibility. The Pentagon has stepped up its network protection since the intrusion, and added additional protection in the form of smart cards and digital signatures. Such security measures are the ultimate example of closing the barn door after the horse is gone, but should at least make further intrusions more difficult.

[Boot]

The PLA have a BN sized element (it may be more) dedicated to hacking other countries systems. One area at least in the Corps we seem to pay lots of lip service to but not actual action is cyber security. I can't count how many CO's on various operations "had" to have access to the internet for convience. Their day to day is only done on NIPR. Classified systems are secure because its a closed system, that is it connects to itself. In most cases any intrusion would have to physically come from the system itself, that is the hacker would phyically have to have access to it.
Back to unclass systems. Its attitudes and lack of training that usually allows these intrusions. One of my biggest rubs as a Comm type has always been the way the my fellow non-Comm. types viewed my specialty. In the Marine Corps at TBS its beat in your head that if your not combat arms your nothing. Many officers come up with that sort of mentality, and what I have seen is a perception that you are weak because your not a "meat eater". As far as the Pentagon goes I can't speak for them. Like I sai I'm willing to bet its a lack of enforcement and attitude (those computer guys are a pain in the butt) that probably led to this.
My last word on perceptions and attitudes; I knew a LtCol now Col, who was told by his base CG that he was the one of best officers he ever had, and even presented him with a pretty high medal. When that CG ranked him, he ranked him last. When the officer confronted his boss on this, his boss told him he doesn't have to talk to him, he's just a Commo...and those in manpower and leadership positions wonder why things like this happen and their best leave to go work for GD or NG.

[Stan]

The Capital Interview -
Greg Bruno, Staff Writer, April 1, 2008

...If you could, start out by talking about the Air Force’s Cyber Command structure, the mission of cyber command, and where we are today in terms of its capabilities.

Right now we’re in the nascent phase. We have a hundred and sixty folks who are assigned across about four different bases who are doing this work for me. As a provisional command, I have no forces. I’m not authorized to have any forces. So until this capability goes initial operational capability on the first of October, this really is a virtual command.

Have we been attacked?

Depends on what you call an attack. We certainly have had penetrations and we’ve been attacked by ourselves, if you will. If you define an attack as something that degrades your ability, yes we’ve been attacked. Sometimes we’re attacked by ourselves from our own acts of omission versus commission.

...How good are we? What can we do, what can’t we do, and are we the best out there?

Well, in this business, there are lots of peers because the price of admission is relatively low. With some technologically smart kids you can do a lot of damage. And the difference is this technology only requires you to have a connection and a laptop computer. So as the nature of warfare changes and the price of admission to the fight goes way down, you can have lots more players.

Much more at the link...

[selil]

The Air Force is pushing this hard. I support our new cyber-over-lords but I'm concerned about several implementations and failures at basic understanding of capability and reasonign I see occuring. When I met for a few minutes with Maj. Gen Elders of AF Cyber Command he was pretty impressive on his depth of understanding. Still having talked to the former project officer for related DARPA projects most everybody is worried about nuts and bolts and few know how to build a car.