DOD network attacks level off

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2000/1204/web-afcea-12-08-00.asp

BY Bill Murray
12/08/2000

The number of detected attacks on unclassified Defense Department
networks has leveled off this year, according to the commander whos in
charge of protecting them.

The number of detected "cyber events" on DODs Non-Classified Internet
Protocol Router Network increased dramatically from 780 in calendar
year 1997 to 22,144 in 1999, said Army Maj. Gen. James Bryan, director
of the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense.

But the number of cyber events has steadied: from January through
October of this year, there were 20,414, he said.

Bryan spoke Tuesday at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics
Associations TechNet Asia-Pacific 2000 conference in Honolulu.

"Were better at detecting what level of activities there are," on DOD
networks, Bryan said. JTF-CND officials use "strict definitions" to
define a cyber event, and each event has to fulfill the requirements
of seven categories, he said.

The importance of having common criteria for what constitutes a cyber
event came up earlier on Tuesday, when Lt. Gen. Edwin Smith,
commanding general for U.S. Army Pacific, said there are 800,000
"hits" each week on his networks from hackers. "And theyre not all
high school hackers," he added.

Ninety-seven percent of the time, intrusions into DOD systems could
have been prevented with better systems configurations, Bryan said. To
address that problem, the DOD CIO Executive Board is expected to sign
a directive for ports and protocol configuration control by the end of
the month, he said.

JTF-CND also has developed a single database covering all DOD
organizations cyber events, Bryan said. Like his predecessor at
JTF-CND, Air Force Maj. Gen. John Campbell, he expressed frustration
that the organization cant do reconnaissance on cyber intruders who
arent in .mil domains.



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