Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of Cyberattack on U.S. – NYTimes.com

Cyber-Fear? Cyber-Uncertainty? Cyber-Doubt? (Cyber-FUD?) Fodder for a struggling defense cybersecurity industry? Maybe. [LINK]. What do you expect? This is the defense secretary, and former CIA director. He makes a living being more paranoid than everyone else! The boss has a point. The use of networking technologies for the sake of convenience is so pervasive in today’s society that it can now be used as a weapon to derail trains, shut down power grids, or interfere with nuclear power plants. This type of cyber attack is much worse than simply flooding the Internet with traffic and denying users access to Facebook. This is much worse than stealing your Facebook password and spamming all your friends with nude pictures of and attaching malicious code.

Knowing all this, what can the average American do about it? Go out and vote on election day. Make sure that the officials you elect are willing to go to work, and support legislation to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure. While you are at it, go to your social networking settings and fix those privacy settings.

Adapting to the (Cyber) Battlefield

Image via CrunchBase

“The unorthodox and the orthodox give rise to each other, like a beginningless circle–who could exhaust them?” — Sun Tzu (孙子)

The Air Force Cryptologic Systems Division released an RFI looking for cryptographic security on iPhones. I can do that! Can you imagine that? Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen using iPhones on the battlefield to wage war? We have already seen the manifestation of cyberwar coupled with kinetic war in Estonia ’07, Ossetia ’08, and right now in Egypt. It is only a matter of time before we see American cyberwarriors using the latest and greatest gadgets to wage cyberwar. To do so, we will need to change the way we equip our troops. It looks to me that the Air Force is finally heading in the right direction by using software on COTS equipment to wage war. Too bad the Army beat the Air Force to the punch and has already awarded Soldiers cash incentives for creating these cybertools. Meanwhile, I look through the RFI and it looks like am ineligible to respond to the RFI put out by my own organization. Way to go, guys. I guess I will go to the Army and see if they will reward me for innovation. Knowing the Air Force, even if there are some good ideas out there the contract for this effort will take two years to finalize, have a two-year source selection, and run five years past deadline and grow 500% in cost overruns.