Cyber Practice

There still is hope for effective cyber defenses for the U.S. against foreign nations. The U.S. Cyber Command, the military department in charge of U.S. cyber-warfare activities, just recently preformed a mock exercise of an attack on Department of Defense (DOD) networks.  The U.S. Cyber Command was set up in September by the Obama administration to protect DOD from cyber attacks after significant data showing reoccurring attacks from foreign nations such as China.

The mission “Cyber Flag” involved 300 participants who had to perform defense skills and cyber tactics in a virtual environment.  They were split up in two groups so that each could practice offensive and defensive tactics. Wright-Patterson, the author of an article online calls Cyber Flag “a realistic training environment for the future.”  Now that there is a common believe that warfare will move from the physical to the virtual world, the military has adopted the Red Flag exercise – a mock exercise of air threats - to Cyber Flag. The exercise uses a combined air operations center that has an intranet to coordinate multiples computers. Through the network the military needs access to the outside world through internet connections and Global Information Grid. Even though it is much easier to penetrate foreign networks and manipulate data, there needs to efforts put into identifying an invasion. Though the exercise is nowhere near perfect since it is hard to visualize the full realm of the cyberspace, the military is making effective progress in at least preparing for attacks.

Source:

Wright-Patterson, “Cyber Flag,” The Merge. http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj08/fal08/hansen.html

Elizabeth Montalbano, “U.S. Cyber Command Practices Defense In Mock Attack.” Nov. 30, 2011. Information Week.  http://informationweek.com/news/government/security/232200508.