A senior “Netwarcom” official at the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Virginia held a meeting with reporters earlier this week. Here’s the scoop from FCW.com reporter Josh Rogin:
At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said.
Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.
“They will exploit anything and everything,” the senior official said, referring to the Chinese hackers’ strategy. And although it is impossible to confirm the involvement of China’s government, the attacks are so deliberate, “it’s hard to believe it’s not government-driven,” the official said. . . .
Current U.S. cyber warfare strategy is dysfunctional, said Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command (Stratcom), in a speech at the Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., last week. Offensive, defensive and reconnaissance efforts among U.S. cyber forces are incompatible and don’t communicate with one another, resulting in a disjointed effort, Cartwright said.
Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command, told reporters at the conference that current policies prevent the United States from pursuing cyberthreats based in foreign countries. Technology has outpaced policy in cyberspace, he said.
The United States should take more aggressive measures against foreign hackers and Web sites that help others attack government systems, Keys said. It may take a cyber version of the 2001 terrorist attacks for the country to realize it must re-examine its approach to cyber warfare, he added.
