WASHINGTON — Over the past year, the Pentagon has made clear that addressing adversarial cyber threats are at the forefront of the department’s priorities, especially against China. As a result, the services have made adjustments to their information technology practices and network structures to become more resilient against the enemy, but not without the occasional bumps in the road.
But Pentagon officials noted that they cannot do this alone. In order to be better prepared in a fight against China, the US needs to partner with allies like those in the NATO alliance and with industry partners.
From increased capabilities through partnerships to the potential resurrection of a once-contested Pentagon office, here are the top five stories on the cyber and networks beat in 2024.
[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2024 and look forward to what 2025 may hold.]
1. ‘A light bulb moment’: US, Canada achieve ‘vital’ federated ICAM connection through joint pilot
During the NATO Edge conference at the beginning of December, Canadian and US officials announced that the Pentagon and the Canadian Armed Forces have achieved federated identity, credential and access management (ICAM) connection between their armed forces in a joint pilot program.
ICAM, which has been adopted in recent years throughout the US Department of Defense, is a system that ensures users are who they say they are and determines what they have access to when logging on to information systems.
With this shared connection, users in the US and Canada were able to securely access the other country’s data on an existing platform that they share. Now that the US and Canada have achieved federated ICAM connection with each other, Pentagon acting Chief Information Officer Leslie Beavers said the next step is to expand this capability to all of NATO countries and other allies.
2. ‘Sense of urgency’: Army’s NETCOM says it will transform IT and cyber ops by the end of next year
During the annual AUSA conference in October, Gen. Jacqueline McPhail, the commanding general of the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, said that the service is planning to transform from solely a network provider to an information technology and cybersecurity provider by the end of next year. This move is part of the service’s Command and Control (C2) Fix initiative — a current project focused on improving and simplifying the existing C2 network infrastructure.
McPhail said the move will allow her office to become more of an operational force spending less time on fixing IT and cyber issues and more time focused on progressing and protecting the DoD’s Information Network, or DODIN. She added that this transformation will happen at the “global level,” but the process will be theater-aligned.
3. Army’s new virtual desktop meant real-world problems for some Guard, Reserve users
On June 1, the Army rolled out a new mandate requiring a virtual desktop for all soldiers to access Microsoft Office 365 platforms. The Army said the move would increase cybersecurity at a time when America’s enemies are looking for digital vulnerabilities. Though it was meant to keep foreign hackers out of the Army 365 suite, some legitimate National Guard or Army Reserve users said a clumsy rollout with inadequate warning meant that they, too, were locked out of their official accounts.
The fluke “exposed a potential gap in the seem that, should there be a crisis situation, would have been a real challenge,” Katherine Kuzminski, deputy director of studies and program director of military, veterans and society at the Center for New American Security, told Breaking Defense over the summer.
4. Defense Innovation Board calls to resurrect AT&L office, but with new name
In July, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board called for a major restructure of the Department of Defense’s acquisition house. The board recommended that it was time to resurrect the old Undersecretary for Acquisition and Logistics (AT&L) office by recombining the offices of the undersecretaries for Acquisition & Sustainment and Research and Engineering. However, the new office wouldn’t inherit its old name and instead has the working name of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for International Integration and Cooperation.
The call to recombine the offices comes after Congress split the AT&L office into the offices of A&S and R&E in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, after years of questioning from leaders about whether having such an immense, joint office was logical in fulfilling modern technological needs. (Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, the last person to hold the title of undersecretary of AT&L, fiercely advocated for not splitting up the office.)
5. System update: Army general takes over from Skinner as director of DISA, JFHQ-DoDIN
At the beginning of October, Air Force Gen. Robert Skinner passed his responsibilities as director of DISA and Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Networks (JFHQ-DoDIN) to Army Gen. Paul Stanton.
“I leave this agency and command with a deep sense of humility, optimism, confidence and, most importantly, honor,” Skinner said during a passing of the flags ceremony.
Skinner retired after a 40-year military career in which he started as an administrative supervisor for the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. He later worked his way up to an Air Force general and in 2015 became the chief of staff at DISA and deputy commander of the JFHQ-DoDIN. In 2021 he took over the post of director of DISA and JFHQ-DoDIN.