Threats lurk among Pentagon's sprawling computer networks

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2012/07/threats-lurk-among-pentagons-sprawling-computer-networks/56700/

By Aliya Sternstein
Nextgov
July 10, 2012

The Pentagon’s thousands of networks are indefensible against 
cyberattacks but no one there can keep track of all the vulnerabilities. 
The military aims to change that within five years.

To say the Defense Department’s information technology departments are 
disjointed is an understatement. According to senior Pentagon officials, 
duplicative networks, thousands of email servers and hundreds of data 
centers prevent warfighters from securely accessing information anywhere 
and anytime.

To heighten security and lower costs, Defense is attempting to build a 
“joint information environment” that would simplify military computing, 
officials on Tuesday told military personnel at a talk sponsored by 
Nextgov’s parent company Government Executive Media Group. The goal by 
2017 is to consolidate information technology contracts across services, 
move off desktops to online services accessible from any device and 
create what Cyber Command calls a “cyber operational picture.”

The existing intrusion prevention system “is not providing that 
real-time information that we need,” Rear Adm. Marshall B. Lytle III, 
director of Command, Control, Communications and Computer (C4) Systems 
and Cyber Command chief information officer, said during an interview 
after the event. A comprehensive snapshot of anomalous network 
activities and instant Defensewide access to threat information from 
softer targets, such as utilities, could reveal a potential coordinated 
attack, he said.

[...]

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