Ever heard the story of how the Internet’s origin was as a project for the US military? Yeah, well, that one’s got quite a bit of truth to it. Why bring it up now? Well, it seems to be particularly pertinent today, as Jon Stokes of Ars Technica highlights an interview conducted by Foreign Policy magazine with “former US cybersecurity czar Richard Clark” (yeah, that Richard Clarke) about our global network of tubes and some of the unnatural stuff that happens deep inside them.
Cyber-warfare is very much a concern of US government, according to Clarke and his discussion of the Air Force Cyber Command, or AFCYBER, who see attacks by states like China as well as rogue elements on the American commercial and federal Web-connected infrastructures as dangers that . That concern is an understandable one, as more and more facets of national operations, both in the public and private sectors, require IP accessibility, which in turn invites remote infiltration. And because the vulnerability of Internet-based applications has regularly been documented for many years now, security and prevention of compromises to the grid is of utmost importance.
The USAF is building the Cyber Command in hopes that it meets an October 1st deadline with a “initial operations capability” with the intent to subsequently build the staff structure of the organization to a full capacity with the technical prowess to both implement and sustain effective defensive measures as well as inflict damage and/or purloin sensitive data if so tasked by administrators.