NSA and StratCom build up hacking capabilities
Marine General John Davishe intends to operationalize net-centric warfare; in addition to developing policy and tactics, StratCom intends to make hacking a valid career path for the Army’s best and brightest
With American military computers under constant assault by foreign hackers — see our story in today’s issue regarding Sandia National Lab — it should come as no surprise that the U.S. authorities are actively seeking ways to do the same to the enemy (or, in the case of countries like China, the suspicious). According to reports this week, the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) are currently developing such a capacity and have named it a high priority for the Network Warfare Joint Functional Component Command. “We’re developing the world’s premier [computer network attack] capability,” said General John Davishe. “Our goal is to operationalize net-centric warfare and bring PowerPoint to life.”
Easier said than done, of course, but Davis seems to have the right approach. As he explained recently to to a conference of the Association for Enterprise Integration, he intended to inculcate a “weapons-school graduate mind-set” among the computer network attack (CAN) staff, so they can “attack holistically in a joint fashion.” Moreover, he intends to make such work a long-term career path in order to keep institutional knowledge within the military. “We need to develop the CNA structure within the JFCC so we can keep our operators in the cyber cockpit longer with incentives and a valid career track,” Davis said.
-read more in this C4ISR Jounal report
