IT professionals in the Defense Department spend a lot of time running interference on the volumes of attempts to penetrate military networks every day. But the DoD CIO wants to redirect some of that effort by lightening their load — and that would be done by automating some network activities dedicated to cybersecurity.
“What we have to get better, from a mission and cost standpoint, are tools that automate cyber basics — patching, or diagnostics where we might have a cyber basics issue where the right data logging can identify…and say, ‘this is a problem,’” DoD CIO Terry Halvorsen told reporters on a Sept. 15. “I think we’re closer to this than many others; I may be an optimist. But at a certain point we want to have some cyber [tools] completely automated, where certain conditions occur and the system responds. It’s the only way we will keep up.”
Much of that will center on big data analytics that can take in and sort through huge quantities of network data to identify anomalies or potentially nefarious activities.
To get there, Halvorsen, following the lead of Defense Secretary Ash Carter, said he’s looking to Silicon Valley for some help. The idea is that DoD can crib from the commercial tech sector to get fast-moving cybersecurity capabilities that help the military better keep up with the threat.
“We’re interested in end point technology; there’s an explosion in innovation there around hardening, containment [and] automation,” Richard Hale, DoD deputy CIO for cybersecurity, said on the call. “We’re interested in analytics — there’s a lot of stuff in the networks generating data, and we have to figure out where the vulnerability is … and in some cases do an automated reaction.”
Hale added that the Pentagon is investigating how to more effectively block zero-day attacks, noting that DoD has “a few pilots in a few of those areas now,” with more to come next year.
RELATED: DISA Director LTG Alan Lynn will appear as a keynote speaker for C4ISR & Networks and Federal Times’ CyberCon 2015, a forum to discuss how to secure defense and federal networks. Join us Nov. 18 at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City, Virginia.
