Coming on the heels of a new, broader Defense Department cyber strategy, the Navy’s new plan for operating in cyberspace seeks to integrate cyber operations into the service’s spectrum of functions.
The strategic plan centers on five key goals: operating the network as a warfighting platform, conducting tailored signals intelligence, delivering warfighting effects through cyberspace, creating shared cyber situational awareness and establishing and maturing the Navy’s cyber mission forces.
The new plan expands on previous framework for Navy cyber operations and fits in with broader DoD-wide cyber initiatives, Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, commander of Fleet Cyber Command/10th Fleet, told reporters in a May 6 Pentagon briefing.
The plan focuses on critical objectives that include further developing the sailors and personnel that will comprise the cyber mission forces – eventually totaling 1,000 in the Navy alone, including a large civilian personnel presence.
“One-third of my total workforce is civilian today, and it’s an operational workforce,” Tighe said. “I depend heavily — for maneuvering my networks, defending my networks — on a civilian population, which is different from other warfare areas, and it’s something people have to get used to.”
Beyond the workforce, the Navy also is focused on operating an arsenal of cyber offensive weapons and defending the network against intrusions – like the one from Iran in 2013, Tighe said.
“We’ve got to be able to prevent the intrusion in the first place, and if there is an intrusion, respond to prevent lateral movement inside our network,” Tighe said. “How often are people trying? How successful are they? We don’t necessarily have those measures, looking back historically, as I would like to have them.”
But Tighe said the Navy has made progress and that the service will continue to do so, by implementing the strategy and learning from incidents like the Iranian intrusion.
“We have taken a whole lot of steps, both operationally and from an investment perspective, to prevent that kind of thing from happening, but every day new capabilities are being developed and we’re fighting an unknown threat,” Tighe said. “So the best we can do in this space is respond with a sense of urgency with the resources that we have. As new defensive operational capabilities come into our network, I need to be able to demonstrate that those investments are providing a return. We have to be able to baseline how much quicker we can address an alert coming off of our network.”
