The US Army and the BEST definition of Cyberspace to date

Last Updated on Thursday, 11 March 2010 10:20 Written by Jeffreycarr Thursday, 11 March 2010 10:20 0 Comments

The US Army’s new Cyberspace Operations Concept Capability Plan 2016-2028 is an outstanding piece of work; not just because it underscores much of what I’ve been saying since 2008, but because it builds a detailed framework of cyberspace as an operating environment which will prove invaluable to every agency in the Intelligence Community and the Department of Defense as well as Congress, the White House and the American public. The following is a brief excerpt which accompanies the above graphic. Do yourself a favor and read at least the Executive Summary. You’ll quickly see why I’m so pleased with it.

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“Cyberspace can be viewed as three layers (physical, logical, and social) made up of five components (geographic, physical network, logical network, cyber persona, and persona) (see figure 2-1).

Former Director for Operations at DIA nominated to lead TSA

Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 07:22 Written by Jeffreycarr Wednesday, 10 March 2010 07:22 0 Comments

TSA, which has seemed completely lost in the woods regarding how to accomplish its mission, will finally have the benefit of an experienced intelligence officer at the helm. The following comes from AviationNews.net:

President Obama’s decision to nominate retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding as TSA administrator brings the agency a chief with “national security expertise and extensive experience in the intelligence community,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

“Effective transportation security involves protecting our citizens from constantly evolving threats while facilitating legal travel and trade around the country and throughout the world,” Napolitano said. “Bob’s national security expertise and extensive experience in the intelligence community and U.S. Army will be a great asset to the department in our efforts to ensure the safety of the nation’s transportation systems.”

Harding currently is president and CEO of his own security consulting firm, Harding Security Associates, LLC.

Harding’s 33 years of military service included assignments as the deputy to the Army’s Chief of Intelligence, as the director for operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency, and as the commander of the Army’s only organization focused on homeland security. He also served as the executive vice president for operations at a medium-sized logistics and supply-chain security company. He has extensive experience running global operations, as well as providing security for sensitive national programs, facilities and technologies.

Harding’s education includes a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Bowie State University, a master of science in business from Salve Regina University, and a master of arts degree in national security and strategy from the U.S. Naval War College. His education also includes the Armed Forces Staff College and the U.S. Naval War College.

Yell “Chinese dissidents’ gmail hacked” and people say “huh?” Yell “Cloud” and you lose millions.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 March 2010 10:44 Written by Jeffreycarr Tuesday, 9 March 2010 10:44 0 Comments

While there’s far too much information about the December attacks on Google and 30+ other companies that remain unknown, consider what the following companies who were victims of these attacks have in common:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Adobe
• Intel
• Rackspace
• Juniper Networks

They either provide Cloud services (Google, Yahoo, Adobe) or support them in some way, i.e.:

• Juniper Networks (the Cloud-ready Data Center)
• Rackspace (The Rackspace Cloud)
• Intel (Trusted Execution Technology for secure Cloud computing)

If my speculation is correct, then I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Amazon and Microsoft were also hit since both are major Cloud service providers (EC2 and Azure).

Think of this as the cyber equivalent of a reconnaissance mission where the task was to survey and exfiltrate information on the major Cloud service providers as well as the companies that provide hardware and software to support  and/or secure Cloud operations. That would imply that the actual attack is yet to come, and it won’t be about Chinese dissidents having their gmail accounts hacked.

Arbor Networks recently released its Fifth Annual Infrastructure Security report: and one of its highlights for 2010 is:

Attacks Shift to the Cloud: Nearly 35% of respondents believe that more sophisticated service and application attacks represent the largest operational threat over the next 12 months.

It should be noted that Google has denied that its attack had anything to do with the Cloud in, tellingly, it’s Enterprise blog. This post was written by David Girouard, president of Google’s Enterprise group:

“This was not an assault on cloud computing. It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers.”

I don’t mean to mock Google’s not-so-subtle attempt to protect it’s income stream but doesn’t this response remind you of that scene from Jaws when the mayor tried to explain to the police chief how he should be more careful with his words?

Mayor Vaughn: Martin, it’s all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, “Huh? What?” You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.