Communications of the ACM
U.s. Defense Bill Approves Offensive Cyber Warfare
Credit: HotHardware
The recently approved U.S. defense budget sanctions the Department of Defense to engage in offensive cyberwarfare to protect U.S. interests and those of its allies, while also directing the military to improve cyberdefensive measures. However, the National Defense Authorization Act does not empower the military to take any offensive cyberaction without presidential authorization.
The bill also orders the Secretary of Defense to obtain more sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities to "discover and isolate" successful attacks for which signatures have not been created. The capabilities must be "adequate to enable well-trained analysts" to uncover advanced persistent threats, and interoperate with endpoints, network gateways, and across worldwide networks. The military is mandated to submit its strategy for fulfilling this directive to Congress by April 1. In addition, the military is required by the act to boost the population and skill sets of cyber security professionals, as well as establish a program over the next several years to spot unauthorized access, use, or broadcast of sensitive data by insiders.
In October, U.S. National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander noted that "the advantage is on the offense" in terms of cyber, and that the government should in some instances wage aggressive campaigns against malicious actors.
From InformationWeek
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