[ISN] In QDR, Defense focuses on combating cyberthreats

[InfoSec News]

http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/38207-1.html

By David C. Walsh 
Special to GCN
02/06/06 

As expected, the newly released Quadrennial Defense Review suggests an
evolution in Pentagon thinking about the role of IT in countering
cyberthreats.

Among IT successes, the 113-page review cites the use of
computer-guided drone aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan. These
"in-country" unmanned aerial vehicles, noted the QDR [1], are remotely
controlled by operators in Nevada.

President Bush submitted the QDR to Congress along with his fiscal
2007 budget request. The QDR is a report the Defense Department
produces every four years that lays out DOD's 20-year projection for
transformation.

These "net-centric reach-backs," noted the report, "achieve a level of
air-ground integration that was difficult to imagine just a decade
ago."

The immediacy of such communications assets "is helping joint forces
gain greater situational awareness to attack the enemy," enabling
"faster decision-making and subsequent actions," according to the QDR.

In the larger scheme, net-centricity wasn't only an enterprise asset
but "a weapons system to be protected" like other parts of the
nation's critical infrastructure. Information security is so vital,
the document warns, that even cyberattacks from abroad could result in
an unspecified "overwhelming response."

Foreign nations, and not just individuals or small groups, may be
involved in sabotage attempts. China is identified as among "near-peer
competitors" that bear watching, the QDR stressed.

Of DOD's $30 billion IT budget, $2 billion a year is spent on
information assurance. Guided by the QDR, the 2007 budget request has
increased by $500 million.

Current and evolving cyberthreats, the review added, underscored the
need to "design, operate and defend the network to ensure continuity
of joint operations."

This includes the core of net-centric operations, the Global
Information Grid (GIG), which enables the digital collection,
communication, storage and management of data for Defense.

Among the steady progress in this area, the QDR stated, is deployment
of "an enhanced land-based network and new satellite constellation"  
- part of the Transformational Communication Architecture. This
ensures "high-bandwidth, survivable Internet protocol communications."

Notwithstanding successes in integrating data across different
enterprises and time zones, the QDR acknowledged "capability gaps" in
military information operations. In all of Iraq, only 133 translators
or "heritage speakers" are deployed, for example.

To close the gaps and ensure seamless communications, DOD would,
according to the QDR, "develop new tools and processes for assessing,
analyzing and delivering information to key audiences."

David Walsh is a freelance writer in Chevy Chase, Md.

[1] http://www.defenselink.mil/qdr/report/Report20060203.pdf