NSA: Perfect Citizen program is purely "research and engineering effort"
Perfect Citizen, a new National Security Agency (NSA) project, would deploy sensors in networks running critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants; the sensors would detect intrusion and other unusual activity indicating a cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure; NSA spokeswoman says the program is “purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract—- This is a research and engineering effort” and “There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor”
The U.S. government has awarded a contract for research to help counter computer-based threats to national-security networks, the chief U.S. code-cracking and eavesdropping agency said, amid mounting concern over cyber vulnerabilities (“U.S. quietly launches protection program against cyber attacks on critical infrastructure,” 8 July 2010 HSNW).
The program, dubbed Perfect Citizen, is “purely a vulnerabilities-assessment and capabilities-development contract,” Judith Emmel, a National Security Agency (NSA) spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to Reuters.
“This is a research and engineering effort,” she said. “There is no monitoring activity involved, and no sensors are employed in this endeavor.”
Reuters quotes the Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman who wrote in the newspaper Thursday edition that Perfect Citizen would rely on sensors deployed in networks running critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants.
Raytheon won a classified contract for the classified work’s initial phase, valued at up to $100 million, the report cited a person familiar with the project as saying.
Joyce Kuzmin, a Raytheon spokeswoman, told Reuters in response: “We have no info on this.”
The NSA, a Defense Department arm, did not confirm or deny that the contract in question had been awarded to Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon.
“This contract provides a set of technical solutions that help the National Security Agency better understand the threats to national security networks,” Emmel said. It would be inappropriate to confirm or deny details of the Journal report because of “the high sensitivity of what we do to defend our nation,” she added.
“Any suggestions that there are illegal or invasive domestic activities associated with this contracted effort are simply not true,” Emmel said. “We strictly adhere to both the spirit and the letter of U.S. laws and regulations.”
Reuters quotes U.S. deputy secretary of defense William Lynn who said last month that more than 100 intelligence agencies and foreign militaries were actively trying to penetrate U.S. computer systems, and “weapons-system blueprints are among the documents that have been compromised.”
The United States must be able to operate freely in cyberspace amid dangers of “remote sabotage,” General Keith Alexander said 3 June in his first public remarks as head of U.S. Cyber Command. It was activated in May to harmonize offensive and defensive U.S. operations in cyberspace (“U.S. Cyber Command launched,” 27 May 2010 HSNW)
