Pentagon taps McAfee, Northrop Grumman to teach military cyber pros

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20120307_8878.php

By Aliya Sternstein
Nextgov
03/07/2012

The Pentagon has hired outside help to, among other tasks, train Defense 
Department cybersecurity professionals on using its networkwide 
threat-detector, according to contractors awarded the nearly $190 
million job. The program, called the Host Based Security System, 
currently is shielding classified and unclassified Defense networks from 
WikiLeaks-like data spills, Pentagon officials have said.

Defense giant Northrop Grumman and McAfee, a computer security provider, 
announced this week that they have been tapped to teach military 
information security personnel and support contractors how to better 
operate the McAfee-developed system. After a soldier allegedly 
transferred volumes of sensitive data to the anti-secrets WikiLeaks 
website, Pentagon officials said they configured the tool to prohibit 
the use of CDs and other removable storage devices on the military's 
classified network.

Northrup began deploying the system departmentwide in 2008. The scope of 
the team's contract, worth up to $189 million over five years, includes 
designing the program to counter morphing threats and undertaking what 
McAfee calls the military's most extensive cybersecurity training 
program ever. The deal, overseen by the Defense Information Systems 
Agency, will supply help desk staff and infrastructure support 
personnel, the contractors said.

"The threats evolve and we continue to evolve ahead of them," Tom 
Conway, McAfee's federal business development director, said on Tuesday 
evening.

[...]


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