NSA Chief Plays Offense on Cloud, Cybersecurity

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/231901327

By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
October 20, 2011

Cloud computing will make the intelligence community more secure and 
efficient, NSA director and U.S. Cyber Command commander Gen. Keith 
Alexander said Thursday.

In a speech in Baltimore before security professionals and a subsequent 
interview with InformationWeek and other media, Alexander touted the 
cloud as a key part of the intelligence community's IT strategy.

He said that cloud computing--his remarks indicated that he was largely 
speaking about private cloud computing--will help deliver better 
information to soldiers and intelligence professionals where and when 
they needed it, cut costs, and at the same time provide the NSA and 
Department of Defense with better insights into its networks, since 
consolidation is one prerequisite of a robust cloud strategy.

"When you think about the cloud, look at what Google, Amazon are doing 
with the technology," he said. "It's absolutely superb. We need to go 
from our legacy databases to the cloud."

Security, Alexander acknowledged, is a key concern in the cloud, but he 
said that the cloud also brings advantages in terms of what he termed 
"collapsing the enclave." Today, he said, the military and Cyber Command 
often have too little insight into what is going on in isolated and 
segmented military and intelligence networks to understand if they are 
in fact secure. A broader cloud infrastructure, he added, would both 
enable his organizations to get a better end-to-end view of their 
networks and be able to put security measures and virtual segments in 
place to maintain security.

[...]


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