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Now that the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chiles, is warning that the U.S. is vulnerable to cyberattacks "across the spectrum," August Cole and Siobhan Gorman observe in the Wall Street Journal that the defense industry is moving intently to get a piece of cybersecurity contracts. A clear-eyed anonymous intelligence official arches an eyebrow:
"My concern and the concern of a lot of people in the government is: Are we going to dump money like we did after 9/11, or are we going to get something for the money we spend?" said one senior intelligence official. "You’re getting people who are not necessarily viewed as experts [in cyber-security] running divisions of these companies."
Wait, you mean we wasted security dollars after 9/11??? It’s refreshing to see such a candid perspective, even if the official decided not to give his/her name.
Interesting coda: Cole and Gorman report that Boeing is hiring retired Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast as their chief cybersecurity officer. "Ms. Fast is consolidating the capabilities that Boeing has developed to protect its own massive network into a new division," they say. Fast was the top Army intelligence officer in Iraq when Abu Ghraib became a U.S. torture chamber.
Crossposted to The Streak.
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Just for the record, the military has long been very much a part of DEFCon, the Hacker’s Convention. I was at DEFCons 5 through 11, and military computer security people were there every year I was, learning security through the eyes of the hackers, and discussing countermeasures, firewalls and security. So while I don’t doubt that the increased use of drone aircraft and other techie toys increases the need for cybersecurity, this isn’t just something they just found out about.
Of course, the ones who were there used to say that they were the only ones who cared, and that their supervisors understood little if anything about security. But many were capable, smart and dedicated, exactly the sorts of men and women I would hope the military would assign to this sort of effort.
(You know, sometimes I walk around DC, and I see someone using an iPhone for work, or a Kindle for enjoyment, while chatting with somebody across the world using a bluetooth headset, and I think, “Wow. I live in the 21st century.” Just sorta kewl.)