An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response to a cyber attack. While the Department of Homeland Security officially remains the lead government agency on cyber defense, the new agreement "sets up an opportunity for DHS to take advantage of the expertise" in the Pentagon, and particularly the secretive electronic spying agency, the National Security Agency, said Butler, who is a deputy assistant defense secretary. The two agencies - Defense and Homeland Security - "will help each other in more tangible ways then they have in the past," Butler told a group of defense reporters. Among other things, a senior DHS cyber official and other DHS employees will move to the NSA to be closer to the heart of the military's cyber defense capability. Closer collaboration provides "an opportunity to look at new ways that we can do national cyber incident response, he said. http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4939254&c=AME&s=TOP
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 1:46 AM, George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com> wrote:
An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response to a cyber attack.
are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing with 'cyber attack'? it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same. We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill, we do that with marines. -chris
On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:04 37AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 1:46 AM, George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com> wrote:
An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response to a cyber attack.
are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing with 'cyber attack'? it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same. We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill, we do that with marines.
Is it a cyberattack, a clumsy criminal, or a bored teenager? From http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12651&page=142 : In the words of a former Justice Department official involved with critical infrastructure protection, “I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.” --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
In the words of a former Justice Department official involved with critical infrastructure protection, “I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.”
this happens with non-cyber things as well... all the time. Point being: "cyber-attack" follows down the path of 'send the people that deal with "attacks" to deal with this'. -chris
On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:32 AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
In the words of a former Justice Department official involved with critical infrastructure protection, “I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.”
this happens with non-cyber things as well... all the time. Point being: "cyber-attack" follows down the path of 'send the people that deal with "attacks" to deal with this'.
And for those people, being highly confident is typically viewed as a positive feature. Regards Marshall
-chris
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:32:38AM -0400, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
In the words of a former Justice Department official involved with critical infrastructure protection, ?I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.?
this happens with non-cyber things as well... all the time. Point being: "cyber-attack" follows down the path of 'send the people that deal with "attacks" to deal with this'.
For non-cyber things, that would be "the police" almost every time. We don't send a squad of marines out after every mugger (although it'd have an interesting deterrent effect...) - Matt
You know, if my tax dollars paid for that I'd probably sit back with a video camera and laugh. Q On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@hezmatt.org> wrote:
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
In the words of a former Justice Department official involved
with critical infrastructure protection, ?I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:32:38AM -0400, Christopher Morrow wrote: source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.?
this happens with non-cyber things as well... all the time. Point being: "cyber-attack" follows down the path of 'send the people that deal with "attacks" to deal with this'.
For non-cyber things, that would be "the police" almost every time. We don't send a squad of marines out after every mugger (although it'd have an interesting deterrent effect...)
- Matt
From: christopher.morrow@gmail.com Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 8:05 AM To: George Bonser Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: DHS and NSA getting married?
are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing with 'cyber attack'? it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same. We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill, we do that with marines.
-chris
"cyber attack" wasn't what caught my eye. It was the notion of NSA having a domestic role defined in policy that I thought was different here. I do believe there are a lot of people who are afraid of "cyber attack" but aren't exactly sure what that would look like. A cyber attack might go completely unnoticed until it is too late. The enabling pieces of such an attack might already be deployed on computers and inside various devices people are buying, who knows. The notion that you are going to stop some invading army of packets might be completely off the mark. It might look more like millions of pieces of equipment suddenly going dark or misbehaving for no apparent reason or might be coordinated with some physical action. A lot of people got caught short with those AT&T cable cuts in the SF Bay a while back.
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:50 AM, George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com> wrote:
From: christopher.morrow@gmail.com Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 8:05 AM To: George Bonser Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: DHS and NSA getting married?
are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing with 'cyber attack'? it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same. We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill, we do that with marines.
-chris
"cyber attack" wasn't what caught my eye. It was the notion of NSA having a domestic role defined in policy that I thought was different here.
not all packets have source addresses in the US, not all facilities in the US Gov't cares about are in the Us.
On 10/22/2010 8:04 AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 1:46 AM, George Bonser <gbonser@seven.com> wrote:
An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response to a cyber attack.
are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing with 'cyber attack'?
Yes... it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on
the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same.
true...
We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill, we do that with marines.
So you clearly have never been on a DDCC S&D Raid I can tell. Todd
-chris
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On 10/21/2010 10:46 PM, George Bonser wrote:
Among other things, a senior DHS cyber official and other DHS employees will move to the NSA to be closer to the heart of the military's cyber defense capability. Closer collaboration provides "an opportunity to look at new ways that we can do national cyber incident response, he said.
Okay, so the Feds have set up a way to not duplicate effort (and waste money at the same) between agencies. Don't really see the downside here. Full disclosure: Assigned to Army TCAE at Ft. Meade in the NSA compound for a couple years in the late 90s - assigned for awhile with the unit that is probably now associated with this. -- Jeff Shultz
participants (8)
-
Christopher Morrow -
George Bonser -
Jeff Shultz -
Marshall Eubanks -
Matthew Palmer -
Quinn Kuzmich -
Steven Bellovin -
todd glassey