Cyber capabilities and weapons are among the most serious threats facing the U.S., the director of national intelligence warned Congress.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, intelligence director Avril Haines and Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, Defense Intelligence Agency director, warned the U.S. needs to be better prepared.
The Army must build a unified network capable of supporting troops anywhere around the world as the force prepares for the future battlefield, said the new deputy Army chief of staff, G-6.
“This unified network is going to be operationally imperative to support multidomain operations,” said Lt. Gen. John Morrison.
The goal is to “make it easy for formations that are in the [continental U.S.] to rapidly deploy to any area of operations and immediately plug in and start conducting operations,” he said.
The Army has always understood the vital importance to soldiers of resilience.
The virtual meeting, once reserved for general officers and senior defense officials, has become a “tremendously powerful” platform that has helped the Army continue its mission during the COVID-19 emergency by connecting soldiers for meetings and even training, a senior Army officer said.
The Army is working to streamline the way it manages data to defend its network from relentless cyberattacks and give commanders fast, secure and reliable access to the information they need on the battlefield.
Network systems “were built and evolved under an ad hoc process, versus a very deliberate design process, 20 years ago,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commander of Army Cyber Command. “Maybe that worked OK, but now we’re part of a Department of Defense network of 7 million end points without sufficient visibility and sufficient command and control of our networks.”
Security and legitimacy of the November general elections are the highest priority for the U.S. Cyber Command, according to the nation’s top cyber officer, who said that the key to success is knowing “our adversaries better than they know themselves.”
The dangers of the COVID-19 virus go beyond the physical, according to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, which issued a warning about cybercriminals trying to capitalize on peoples’ vulnerabilities during the global pandemic.
“Be suspicious,” soldiers were reminded in a Cybercrime Prevention Flyer issued March 19. The flyer strongly encourages soldiers to take extra steps in verifying unknown people or organizations who ask for personal information or seek to obtain money for goods or services.
The chief of the National Guard Bureau said the Guard is prepared to respond to cyberattacks that are now “daily battlegrounds” in the homeland, citing attacks on school districts and government agencies in Texas earlier this year.
“Our adversaries and nonstate actors use cyber activity to target personnel, commercial and government infrastructure, and the effects can be devastating,” Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel said during a Nov. 5 media roundtable at the Pentagon.
In recognition of the growing importance of cyber, electronic warfare and advanced communications, the Army is changing the way it assesses, trains and manages its cyber and signal personnel, said Maj. Gen. Neil Hersey, commanding general of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence.
Despite his title, Hersey noted that he runs both the cyber and signal schools and manages the cyber, electronic warfare and signal workforces. That combination is natural because “90% of what we do on the networks is done by the Signal Corps,” he said.
As U.S. Cyber Command and its subordinate Army headquarters approach their 10th anniversary next year, the military’s cyber warfighters must remain resilient and ready, one of the military’s top generals said.
“We’re on a journey, and we’ve been on a journey for the past decade,” said Gen. Paul Nakasone, who is the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service.
