WASHINGTON: The private sector — and the government — must “exhaust” the use of traditional responses such as public shaming, criminal charges, diplomatic demarches, and sanctions “before we contemplate the dangerous possibility we might encourage vigilantism,” the powerful deputy director of the National Security Agency says. Chris Inglis offered an audience of several hundred gathered for… Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: North Korea’s recent successful launch of a satellite into orbit raises “lots of concerns for lots of reasons,” and means that the secretive state now possesses the capability of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, the head of Air Force Space Command, Gen. William Shelton said this morning.
The ability to sling a warhead across continents is especially worrying in this case since North Korea appears to have successfully tested nuclear weapons. A new nuclear test may be in the works by Sunday, according to South Korean news reports. Keep reading →
The National Security Agency is launching a mobile device capability at the end of this year that will allow its personnel to securely access classified information with their smartphones and tablet computers.
The program, which is a joint effort with the Defense Information Systems Agency, could potentially provide the military services with similar secure information access capabilities. Keep reading →
The intelligence community is developing a single cloud computing network to allow all its analysts to access and rapidly sift through massive volumes of data. When fully complete, this effort will create a pan-agency cloud, with organizations sharing many of the same computing resources and information. More importantly, the hope is the system will break down existing boundaries between agencies and change their insular cultures.
As in the rest of the federal government, lower costs and higher efficiency are the primary reasons for the intelligence world’s shift to cloud computing, said Charles Allen, formerly Under Secretary of Homeland Security for intelligence and analysis, currently a principal with the Chertoff Group, in an interview with Breaking Defense. Now in its eighth month, the goal of the effort is to connect the CIA’s existing cloud to a new cloud run by the National Security Agency. This NSA-run network consists of five other intelligence agencies and the FBI. Both of these clouds can interoperate, but the CIA has its own unique needs because it must work with human intelligence, which necessitates keeping its cloud slightly separate, he said. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: The nation’s top military cyber commander offered his version of how government and military agencies are likely to work together when America suffers cyber attacks, and warned that industry needs to take a greater role.
“We have laid out lanes of the road,” Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency said, sketching them out in broad terms for an audience of security professionals yesterday at a symposium sponsored by Symantec here. Keep reading →
“When reached by cell phone the Taliban claimed credit,” said Google Chairman Eric Schmidt referring to Malala Yousufzai, the young woman shot and critically-injured for protesting against the Taliban. “We know their phone number? Hmm. Why don’t we know where they are?”
ORLANDO: Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency and Cyber Command, told a standing-room-only crowd at the annual Geoint intelligence conference last year that the NSA and its sister intelligence agencies could save one third or more on their information technology costs by moving to the so-called cloud.
Given that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last year that the intelligence budget cuts over the next decade would be in the “double digits” — our best information is that the cuts are around $25 bilion over a decade — the pressure is on for Alexander to deliver. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: The United States is “losing the cyber espionage war” against China, Russia and other countries, but even in the face of such a grave threat the country cannot agree on how to protect its precious intellectual seed capital from these predations, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says.
“We are running out of time on this,” Rep. Mike Rogers, respected for working closely with his ranking member, said in a speech at today’s Intelligence and National Security Alliance‘s (INSA) cyber conference here. Keep reading →
The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to kick down a lot of existing security boundaries so that commanders can work together efficiently without having their email, video and text messaging hung up in a thicket of contradictory security requirements. But increasing access to classified command networks calls for some tradeoffs between security and utility, Anthony Montemarano, DISA’s director for strategic planning told Breaking Defense.
To meet its goals and protect military networks, DISA, is working with Cyber Command to share information and develop tactics and policies to respond quickly to cyber attacks. The agency is also working closely with the NSA on security technologies such as encryption for mobile devices, Montemarano said. Keep reading →
Colin Clark
Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr.
NSA Monitoring Imbroglio: Much Ado About System That Works
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to address the subtleties that are being missed or ignored by most critics of the NSA’s recently revealed PRISM program, but it’s gotten lost in the process of readying for the Paris Air Show and covering those things that the famous Washington journalism pack isn’t following in… Keep reading →