September 5, 2018 — Cyberspace “is a domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures.” [1] It is the newest military domain affecting the Operating Environment (OE) and the focus of concern by the President of the United States. In the Presidential Executive Order on Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure, President Trump directed the Department of Defense and other agencies across the whole of government to identify a long-term way ahead to address education and retention of cybersecurity professionals. [2] There are two potential programs Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Response Enterprise (CRE) [3] and the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), which could provide a framework that supports long-term education and retention of the US government cyber workforce.
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September 5, 2018 — In recent history, America witnessed cyber breaches at Snapchat, where employees had personal information stolen by way of a phishing scam; Premier Healthcare, which saw unencrypted data pertaining to more than 200,000 users stolen from a laptop; Verizon Enterprise Solutions, who had the information of 1.5 million customers stolen by hackers; and LinkedIn, who saw a 2012 data breach “come back to haunt them when 117 million e-mail and password combinations stolen by hackers four years ago popped up online [1].” These are just some of the many breaches experienced recently, which also included the hacking of a Presidential candidate by actors of a foreign nation-state, potentially an act of cyber warfare. MORE
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September 5, 2018 — In the modern military’s highly interconnected and technology-reliant operational environment, cybersecurity is rapidly growing in importance. Moreover, as a number of highly publicized attacks have occurred against complex cyberphysical systems such as automobiles and airplanes, cybersecurity is no longer limited to traditional computer systems and IT networks. While architectural analysis approaches are critical to improving cybersecurity, these approaches are often poorly understood and applied in ad hoc fashion. This work addresses these gaps by answering the questions: 1. “What is cybersecurity architectural analysis?” and 2. “How can architectural analysis be used to more effectively support cybersecurity decision making for complex cyber-physical systems?” First, a readily understandable description of key architectural concepts and definitions is provided which culminates in a working definition of “cybersecurity architectural analysis,” since none is available in the literature. Next, we survey several architectural analysis approaches to provide the reader with an understanding of the various approaches being used across government and industry. Based on our proposed definition, the previously introduced key concepts, and our survey results, we establish desirable characteristics for evaluating cybersecurity architectural analysis approaches. Lastly, each of the surveyed approaches is assessed against the characteristics and areas of future work are identified. MORE
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September 5, 2018 — Through a concise and straightforward narrative, Dr. Alison Lawlor Russell outlines the major issues threatening the United States cyber system through the lens of an A2/AD perspective. Alison Russell is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Merrimack College.
How can the people of the United States defend their land and physical assets? This traditional question applies not just to American citizens, but to people across the world and throughout history. A recurring answer is the principle of Anti-Access/Area Denial or A2/AD.
The A2/AD strategy is defined as refusing “movement to a theater (anti-access), while [area denial] affects movement within a theater.” Putting these ideas into context, A2 would be the US blocking the Soviet Union’s access to Cuba with a naval quarantine; AD would be hampering the enemy’s ability to maneuver in the Mekong Delta, such as guerilla tactics against US forces in Vietnam. MORE
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September 5, 2018 — In 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spoke about the rising dangers of a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” analogizing the potential devastation from a cyberattack to that of the surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii in December of
1941. [1] More recently, U.S. Senator John McCain called the Russian meddling in the 2016 elections “an act of war.” [2]The reality of contemporary international relations and the proliferation of cyber operations as an adjunct to both peacetime and wartime operations of states has raised important questions about what would constitute an act of war in the cyber domain, triggering the relevant international legal rules regulating state behavior. As of yet, there is no global consensus about what an act of war carried out by cyber means would look like, versus acts that would fall below the level of an act of war, and although still unlawful, would call for different responses under the law. [3] MORE
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August 1, 2018 — Cyberspace is a human space, as dynamic and uncertain as human nature. No longer simply a technical abstraction or man-made domain unto itself, [1]cyberspace is a growing facet of every-day life that increasingly cuts across all aspects of Special Operations. Cyber is a dynamic space, a global commons of human practice, which embodies the actions, behaviors, and decisions of man.Cyber is also an uncertain space; and although, its future impact to our national security is yet to be determined, it is clearly a space where United States Special Operations Forces (USSOF) have an increasing role in shaping the final outcome. Ultimately,cyber is a human enterprise which empowers and entangles countless global interactions,[2] and is rapidly becoming a preeminent space where human conflicts, and thus USSOF, must play a part. MORE
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August 1, 2018 — The militarized and contested Internet with a multitude of state-sponsored cyberattacks can generate an evolutionary process when the targeted nation is strengthened by the abundance of information it receives from the attacks.When the targeted nation restrains from retaliating against the attacking adversarial state its systems are perfected, meanwhile the attacking state is denied the feedback needed to stay current and pose a long-term threat. The targeted nation has increased its potential to go from prey to predator, when the accrued knowledge far exceeds the attacker, and the game has changed. The targeted nation can then strike back far superior on the initial attacker compared to the initial attacker’s first moves. In contrast to the Red Queen hypothesis, our Restrained Red Queen model illustrates the adaptive advantage of a targeted nation that decides to selectively counterstrike its aggressor. The reticent targeted nation has benefited from restraining to counter-strike and increases its own survivability by embracing the initial attacks as information that can be converted to superiority over time.
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August 1, 2018 — We are entering a new era of evolving threats, advancing technologies, and reduced resources. Adversaries continue to exploit weaknesses within interconnected systems, such as the Enterprise Resource Planning solutions that now power the Army’s daily operations through the aggregation and analysis of vast amounts of data, sometimes from dozens of sources. Each of these sources brings its own level of threat and vulnerability, leading to an incredibly complex environment ripe for exploitation. Despite these challenges, Army Materiel Command (AMC) is employing an aggressive cyber strategy to ensure our resilience within an increasingly congested and contested domain. MORE
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August 1, 2018 — Security and intelligence practitioners are rapidly expanding their cyber capabilities to accomplish their core missions of warfighting, ensuring homeland security and advancing national security interests. However, their efforts also have significant implications for a large and expanding array of other actors, rules and institutions at both the domestic and global levels. This article discusses the emerging global regime complex for cyber issues, highlighting contemporary rule-making challenges and the potential for international conflict over the nature of the cyber regime complex. It then demonstrates the importance and the difficulty of engaging security and intelligence practitioners more closely with these processes of global rule-making, and argues that such efforts must begin at the cultural and attitudinal levels within the broader intelligence and defense communities. The article concludes by advancing modest recommendations for next steps in ensuring the engagement of security and intelligence practitioners with the global cyber regime complex. MORE
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August 1, 2018 — Cyber is more than programming 1s and 0s, it is an interdisciplinary domain that involves elements of many disciplines of science, engineering,and humanities. Understanding mathematics is critical to understanding the cyber domain. At the United States Military Academy (USMA), the Mathematical Sciences Department is contributing to cadets’ cyber education. The Military Academy CYBER Education Working Group produced initial thoughts on how to educate in this domain. [1] Using this construct, this article identifies the knowledge, skills, and attributes that are elements of USMA’s core mathematics,network science minor, or mathematics major. The intent is to help prepare future military officers for leadership roles in the cyber-affected world in three tiers: (1) what all officers should know, (2) what highly technical officers should know, and (3) what cyber leaders should know. [2] All officers should have a broad professional cognizance of cyber operations, while highly technical officers and cyber leaders could benefit from a more in-depth understanding of mathematics relative to cyberspace. MORE
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