By Cheryl Pellerin
WASHINGTON, March 12, 2013 – As escalating rounds of exploits and attacks mar the strategic landscape of cyberspace, U.S. Cyber Command is standing up a highly trained cadre focused on national defense in that domain, the Cybercom commander told Congress today.
Army Gen. Keith B. Alexander told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the command is developing teams that will protect the nation’s interests in cyberspace, along with tactics, techniques and procedures, and doctrine describing how the teams will work in that environment.
“These defend-the-nation teams are not defensive teams, these are offensive teams that the Defense Department would use to defend the nation if it were attacked in cyberspace,” said Alexander, who also serves as National Security Agency director. “Thirteen of the teams we’re creating are for that mission set alone. We’re also creating 27 teams that would support combatant commands and their planning process for offensive cyber capabilities.”
Cybercom also has a series of teams that will defend DOD networks in cyberspace, the general said.
The intent at Cybercom is to stand up roughly one-third of the teams by September, the next third by September 2014, and the final third by September 2015, he added.
“Those three sets of teams are the core construct for what we’re working on with the services to develop our cyber cadre,” he said, adding that the effort is on track thanks to efforts by the service chiefs, who are pushing the initiative.Training is key to the teams’ development, the general said. “The most important partnership we have with NSA and others is in ensuring that training standards are at the highest level,” he added.Alexander told the panel that, from Cybercom’s perspective, the environment on the strategic landscape of cyberspace is becoming more contentious.
“Cyber effects are growing. We’ve seen attacks on Wall Street — 140 over the last six months — grow significantly. In August, we saw a destructive attack on Saudi Aramco, where data on over 30,000 systems was destroyed,” he said.
“We’ve done a lot of work on that, and have ironed out how the joint cyber centers at each combatant command will work with Cyber Command, how we push information back and forth, and how we’ll have operational and direct support of teams operating in their areas,” Alexander said. “We’ll have more to do on this as the teams come online.”
