[Infowarrior] - Air Force Draws Weekend Cyberwarriors From Microsoft, Cisco

[Richard Forno]

Air Force Draws Weekend Cyberwarriors From Microsoft, Cisco
By John Lasker Email 08.07.07 | 2:00 AM
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/08/262nd

If the U.S. Air Force is ever ordered into a cyberwar with a foreign country
or computer-savvy terrorist group, the 100-plus citizen cybersoldiers at the
Air National Guard's 262nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron will boast
an advantage other countries can't match: They built the very software and
hardware they're attacking.

That's because the 262nd, based at McChord Air Force Base outside Tacoma,
Washington, draws weekend warriors from Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Adobe
Systems and other tech companies, in a recruitment model that senior
military leadership is touting as vital to the Air Force's expanded mission
to achieve "dominance in cyberspace."

"We ... must capitalize on the talent and expertise of our Guard and Reserve
members who may have direct ties and long experience in high-tech industry,"
wrote Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne in a recent issue of the
Air and Space Power Journal, an Air Force publication. "We must be prepared
to defeat our enemies by using combined arms -- air, ground, sea, space, and
cyber weapons systems."

Created out of a combat communications squadron in 2002, the 262nd was
commissioned to carry out simulated cyberattacks within the Air Force. But
the Air Force's determination to develop an offensive cyberwarfare
capability has been well-known since December 2005, when the service
formally revised its mission statement to announce that airmen and airwomen
would henceforth "fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace."

The military's new focus on recruiting talent from high-tech companies
raises a potential conflict of interest. Cisco's routers and switches are
considered the nervous system of the internet worldwide. Microsoft and Adobe
products are used by hundreds of millions across the planet, and have
suffered from programming errors that make them vulnerable to attack --
which sometimes remain a secret inside the company for weeks or months
before they're patched.

In the hands of an offensive cyberwar unit, advance knowledge of serious
vulnerabilities could be devastating, says Robert Masse, a reformed hacker
who founded Montreal-based computer security firm GoSecure. Cyberwarfare is
"all about knowing exploits no one else knows about," says Masse. "You need
the exploits to break in.... The people with the most exploits win."

Some countries -- notably China -- have voiced concerns that Microsoft might
pack backdoors in its closed-source operating systems and applications. In
an effort to curb distrust, in 2003 Microsoft signed a pact with China,
Russia, the United Kingdom, NATO and other nations to let them see the
Windows source code.

But the company is mum on whether it sees ethical problems in its engineers
working part time for a military unit dedicated to hacking its products.

"Microsoft does not hold specifics about employees that are supporting the
262nd," says a Microsoft spokeswoman. "So to this end, there really is no
comment on the types of work they are doing." Cisco and Adobe also declined
to comment.

Cybersecurity expert Richard Forno, who runs infowarrior.org, praised the
recruitment effort. "The whole idea of an offensive information warfare
unit, particularly a computer network attack unit, is to build capabilities
for possible exploitation down the road," says Forno. "It just so happens
the U.S. is lucky that the companies building the world's most popular and
widely used IT products are based in the United States."

Guardsmen and reservists serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year, and
are subject to being called to active or full-time duty for stints ranging
from a handful of months to several years.

Even though the 262nd is named an "aggressor squadron," much of its work is
defensive in nature, says Maj. Philip Osterli, a public information officer
representing the unit.

"They do look at adversarial threat packages from all across the board," he
says. "We do not have a charter allowing us to conduct CNA (computer network
attacks)."

In addition to the 262nd, the Air National Guard draws from tech companies
to staff the 177th Information Aggressor Squadron in Kansas, while both the
67th Network Warfare Wing and the Air Force Information Warfare Center
recruit from the tech-heavy "Austin corridor" in central Texas, Wynne wrote.

For this year's defense budget, Congress approved $800,000 for the planning
and design of a new training and operations facility for the 262nd.