U.S. Air Force sets up Command to defend the cyberspace
New York. Cyber war! Forget the traditional wars: cyberspace is the new battleground of the 21st century. As the Pentagon is trying to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan, it is also getting ready for this new kind of war. On Tuesday September 18, the U.S. Air Force set up a provisional Cyber Command at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana (photo of existing capabilities ©U.S. Air Force). Its goal will be to protect the U.S. cyberspace against hacker attacks. “We dominate the air, we dominate space, we want to dominate cyberspace, but I don’t think we do that right now,” Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said on Tuesday at the Air Force’s 60th birthday celebration. In December 2005, the Air Force mission statement was amended to include cyberspace as an operational domain along with air and space. “Our goal with the Cyber Command is to unify our operations in order to have a less ad hoc approach of cyber war”, said Captain Rob Goza, public affairs officer at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The new command’s mission will be to protect the U.S. from attacks on its electronic and digital information systems. It will develop the capability to attack enemy networks and will also be responsible for training, organizing and equipping the service for cyberspace. The Air Force will place a major general, yet to be named, in charge of the interim command. The size and the location of the final Cyber Command have not been determined, according to U.S. officials. Earlier this month, the Pentagon acknowledged its computer network had been the target of cyber attacks after anonymous sources told the Financial Times that hackers from China had broken into one of the systems. On Tuesday September 18, Michael McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, warned in a written statement during a House of Representatives hearing, that Russia and China were actively spying on the U.S. “China and Russia’s foreign intelligence services are among the most aggressive in collecting against sensitive and protected US systems, facilities and developmental projects”, Mr McConnell said. Major Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the decision to set up a Cyber Command was unrelated to the recent wave of electronic attacks. “The Air Force had been working on the project for a while”, he said. He declined to comment on the state of the investigations into the cyber attacks against the Department of Defense networks. The U.S. already has a cyber police outside Baltimore (Maryland). The Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) focuses on digital forensics and electronic media analysis for criminal law enforcement and Department of Defense counterintelligence investigations and activities. But securing the cyberspace is and remains the U.S. Air Force’s mission. New York / Jean-Cosme Delaloye CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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