24 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR
By: Mark Pomerleau
In his first public comments since assuming the head of U.S. Cyber Command, Gen. Paul Nakasone said the Department of Defense is taking a more aggressive approach to protect the nation's data and networks and aims to stay ahead of malicious cyber and information-related activity.
The command's new vision, called “Achieve and Maintain Cyberspace Superiority," published in April, describes the notion of “continuous engagement” and “defending forward” to understand adversary weaknesses and impose “tactical friction and strategic costs.”
“Through persistent action and competing more effectively below the level of armed conflict, we can influence the calculations of our adversaries, deter aggression, and clarify the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in cyberspace,” the document reads.
Nakasone speaking July 21 at the Aspen Security Forum, said adversaries have long worked below the threshold of war to steal intellectual property, personally identifiable information and undermine societal discourse. While individually, these activities don't appear sensational, taken in aggregate, Nakasone said, they have grave national economic and security implications.
Many academics have criticized the U.S. response to Russian election interference and noted that the United States tends to view conflicts through the binary lens of war or peace while competitors such as Russia see themselves constantly engaged in a state of war.
From the U.S. perspective, many cyber acts are considered beneath the threshold of war, denoting a lesser response. But Nakasone said the philosophy of continuous engagement is more in line with the new National Defense Strategy, one that suggests the return of great power competition with nations such as Russia and China.
In practice, Nakasone articulated a more aggressive approach, one that involves entering an adversary's network to learn what they are doing as a means of improving defenses.
The philosophy is “this idea that we want to have our forces to be able to enable our defensive capabilities and to act forward,” Nakasone said. “Act outside of the boundaries of the United States to understand what our adversaries are doing and be able to engage those adversaries and obviously [be] able to better protect our networks, our data and our weapon systems.
Such action, penetrating a network or sovereign territory, has not typically been an action a military organization has taken outside an engaged hostility with an organization or nation vice a covert action finding.
Nakasone's predecessor told Congress that the command was mulling over cyber operations in nations where the United States is not actively involved in a conflict.
Then Adm. Michael Rogers, explained he is comfortable with his authorities to use offensive cyber tactics in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, however, he added that they need more speed and agility in employing these capabilities “outside the designated areas of hostility.”
11 juillet 2024 | International, Sécurité
Chinese APT41 group upgrades malware arsenal with DodgeBox loader and MoonWalk backdoor, employing advanced evasion techniques for cyber espionage cam
22 juin 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
By: Karen Jowers A retired Army major general and former retail executive will lead a Pentagon task force that is examining the case for a possible merger of the military exchange and commissary systems, Defense officials announced Thursday. Keith Thurgood, who was also the chief executive officer of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service from 2007 to 2010, will start work Monday. If the task force business case analysis confirms that consolidation is the right approach, and if Defense Department officials back that finding, Thurgood will serve as the consolidated organization's executive director until the permanent position is advertised and filled, according to a May 29 memo directing the task force's formation. The retired Reserve major general has more than 28 years of military service and has held executive positions at PepsiCo & Frito-Lay Inc., Sam's Club, Overseas Military Sales Corporation, and MedAssets, Inc. He will take a sabbatical from his current position as clinical professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He could serve up to two years on the task force. The task force will examine “back office” operations of the exchanges and commissaries, such as information technology, human resources and accounting. It will first determine whether the exchange systems ― AAFES, Navy Exchange Service Command, and Marine Corps Exchange ― could be combined with one corporate “backbone.” Then members will determine whether the Defense Commissary Agency could be merged into that system. Consolidation of the stores wouldn't necessarily mean that commissaries and exchanges would be combined into one store. Officials are also looking at keeping the individual branding of the exchange stores on military bases, as they combine behind-the-scenes operations. “With General Thurgood's leadership, understanding of the customer experience, and private sector experience in the retail space, the task force will evaluate our potential to generate efficiencies and scrutinize the above-the-store business aspects of the exchange system, with a goal of validating and defining our execution plan for the way forward,” said John H. Gibson, II, DoD's chief management officer, in the DoD announcement. https://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/2018/06/21/heres-who-will-lead-the-dod-group-that-could-decide-the-future-of-military-shopping/
7 janvier 2022 | International, Aérospatial
A new deployment model could be ready for primetime as soon as October 2022.