Pentagon Cyber Defense Bill Comes To $100M For 6 Months 92
coondoggie writes "Protecting defense departments networks cost taxpayers more than $100 million over the past six months, US Strategic Command officials said yesterday.
The motives of those attacking the networks go from just plain vandalism to theft of money or information to espionage. Protecting the networks is a huge challenge for the command, Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton told a cyber security conference in Omaha, Neb., this week.
'Pay me now or pay me later,' Davis said. 'In the last six months, we spent more than $100 million reacting to things on our networks after the fact. It would be nice to spend that money proactively to put things in place so we'd be more active and proactive in posture rather than cleaning up after the fact.'"
frist post! (Score:5, Interesting)
How much pentagon 'cyber' defense is protecting windows?
ban ding!
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, but probably a LOT.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, it is a lot.
- however, primarily these are client machines, and the forms of attack that military systems endure are, if not OS-independent (ddos, etc), then perpetrated by individuals who will adapt for whichever OS is being run (espionage, etc).
Moving from Windows to another OS would provide relatively little additional security for client machines while incurring a HUGE cost in user re-training.
Servers, on the other hand, are, ummmm. . . Let's just say the server world is a LITTLE different fro
Re: (Score:2)
Retraining costs a neither here nor there as they are a one of cost versus continuing licence and security costs, basically going on forever. Quite simply they should go for parallel networks and external high risk network with strictly limited access and an internal network with no external access for all security work.
Re: (Score:1)
Retraining costs a neither here nor there as they are a one of cost versus continuing licence and security costs, basically going on forever. Quite simply they should go for parallel networks and external high risk network with strictly limited access and an internal network with no external access for all security work.
How are retraining costs neither a here nor there? Like it or not, that cost is huge and absolutely factors in. It's not easy to train millions of people to use a new OS, but it's doable. Teaching millions of people, who are generally already busy doing other things, how to use a PowerPoint, Outlook, and Word replacement is very expensive. Getting all of your internal solutions, custom apps, scripts, etc. recreated under the new environment is nearly impossible.
If the problem was a high percentage o
Re: (Score:1)
Uhhh, dude, there exists a utility for making such migrations gradual, it's called WINE, you might have heard about it. Seriously, set up a testing rig, and start tweaking WINE 'till it works OOTB for all the internal apps/scripts/etc (no pun intended).
Re: (Score:2)
Uhhh, dude, there exists a utility for making such migrations gradual, it's called WINE, you might have heard about it. Seriously, set up a testing rig, and start tweaking WINE 'till it works OOTB for all the internal apps/scripts/etc (no pun intended).
Uhhh, dude, I've used wine, and codeweavers, and VMs, and lots of other goodies. I don't think you understand the magnitude of the DoD's IT infrastructure. We're probably talking at least a million PCs, tens of thousands of custom apps, databases, programs, interfaces, protocols, front ends ... spread across hundreds (thousands?) of installations, supported by multiple separate IT organizations. And you would have all of this reworked to solve a problem that does not exist?
I like open source as much as t
Re: (Score:2)
Consider the long term, a student can be taught open source software once in their life and use that knowledge for the next forty years, versus minimum 40 closed source proprietary software licence renewals (more likely up near the 200 mark), with re-eduction for changed interfaces, so new manuals can be sold and excuses can be made for upgrading, so neither here there, as the initial education can be done at school for exactly the same price (excluding of course 16 years of proprietary licence fees during
Re: (Score:2)
Of course alot of it is windows, whether or not we like it, Windows is the current standard for the desktop and the easiest to support currently. On the other hand, there are 2 to 3 completely separate networks, 1 of those is the public net, the others are isolated and secure. Most of the cleanup work takes place on the non secured networks.
On the bright side, since I happen to work as a IA/IT security consultant, people using windows keeps me employed :)
TCO? (Score:1, Funny)
I don't claim that the $100M would go to zero if Windows were eliminated in favor of more secure servers and desktops, but it would be a lot lower.
Re:TCO? (Score:5, Interesting)
While working for the USAF, I was required to do some online training. To run the training, ActiveX had to be enabled and IE basicially set to "slut mode", that is, accept and run everything. That really didn't give me a good feeling about their security.
Re:TCO? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should have been able to fix this yourself.
Don't allow slut mode for everything.
Figure out what sites they use for the training, and add them to the trusted sites list.
I've seen this before in various places, and always disregarded the instructions for setting it up, and figure out what sites to add, instead.
They end up a lot more secure when I've finished setting them up, than if the instructions were followed.
Re:TCO? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't have administrator access and wasn't employed to do IT, and thus couldn't have done a proper set up for everyone, anyway, so I took the easy way out - just setting slut mode to do training, then turning everything off when finished. As far as I am aware, everyone else in my office (and on that base, for all I knew) had slut mode set full time so they could do training when required,. As the training wasn't base-specific, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the average Windows installation on non-sensitive systems USAF-wide is set with similar lax settings with the base firewalls being the main idea of security.
Hopefully, someone from the USAF will jump on and tell me that things have changed since then and/or that base must have been an exception.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
USAF here.
I don't recall having to change any settings to do training... but this is why there is diffrent levels of networks.
You can have every virus and trojen known to man on your NIPER computer [wikipedia.org] and it won't affect the mission at all since they can't touch the SIPER [wikipedia.org] or JWICS [wikipedia.org] computer networks.
Re: (Score:1)
You can have every virus and trojen known to man on your NIPER computer [wikipedia.org] and it won't affect the mission at all since they can't touch the SIPER [wikipedia.org] or JWICS [wikipedia.org] computer networks.
I have no idea where you work, but if everything your unit does on NIPR was instantly lost without warning and NIPR was never available to you again, I'm quite sure it would affect your mission. If not, you should look around you at the way other units operate, or need to operate, and realize that it would affect them.
Re: (Score:2)
Last I saw, NIPR was vital for weather to get their reports, airspace frequently had to be coordinated with multiple agencies on NIPR, NOTAMSs were checked on NIPR, government charge cards were issued/tracked/paid on NIPR, and logistics ordered a lot of vital things on... NIPR.
There are separate networks because you can't have classified information floating around on NIPR, not because NIPR isn't needed.
Re: (Score:1)
NIPR isn't any more secure than your home PC: and it doesn't have to be.
The only security considerations done on NIPR is Virus control so that the users can get their work done, and attack analysis, to see what the enemy/troublemakers are up to.
Nothing important is put on the unclassified military network, NIPR.
If you WERE putting something important on it, I suggest you go run and hide now.
Re: (Score:2)
If you could set it to 'slut' mode as you like to call it, you could have also added the site to the trusted sites list and only allowed those sites to do so.
Ignorance and being lazy is no excuse, especially for an airman.
Re: (Score:2)
I was a contractor, not an airman. Even if I was gung-ho and did things properly, the person logging on after me with everything set to slut mode would still allow the "Click Here - You're a Winner" pop-ups and such to be self-installed.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Why the heck doesn't the military have their own CA, and import the CA cert into the image of all their machines?
I know, I know.....military intelligence....
Re: (Score:1)
They do have their own Root CA [disa.mil]. Either AC is talking out of his ass, or the images using at his base are all kinds of jacked up. Frankly, from my experience with AF IT, it wouldn't surprise me if both were true.
Public domain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are all the lessons learned in the public domain since the Pentagon is a government agency? I'm sure there are many others like myself curious to see how supposedly top-secret issues are kept safe from prying eyes. Failure intrigues me more than success because it's through failure that we learn.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's certainly NOT Top Secret, in fact it's probably not classified. I would assume its FOUO, meaning that it can't be publicly released nor is it available through the FOIA.
Brett
Re:Public domain? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, some of it probably is classified. If a compromise or vulnerability involves a classified network, then any of the info would be classified. Even if its an unclassified internet connected system current vulnerabilities would be classified. Investigations of ongoing compromises could be classified simply because you don't want to tip your hand to the adversary that you even know he's there - you're just watching to figure out how they got there, their techniques, and what they're after.
A large portion of the lessons learned, recommended configurations, etc are freely available. Check the DISA or NSA sites, or google for DOD all-hands messages and directives.
Re:Public domain? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd just like to congratulate you on the gramatically correct use of there, their and they're in the same sentence - it's a rare thing to see in these parts.
/~Rockwolf
Re: (Score:2)
The classified networks (SIPR and JWICS) are well isolated and while the chances of a vulnerability being exploited on those networks is slim, it has happened before. Mostly due to older workstations on those networks where stupid admins and people multi home their systems on the secure and non secure NIPRNET, which is against policy, and very much a no no, but it does happen....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Our military does not exist for the benefit of our citizens, and has not for a long time.
Re:Public domain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Our military does not exist for the benefit of our citizens, and has not for a long time.
It never did - at least not in American history.
Originally it was:
Militia = Civil defense
Military = Federal Defense
Now:
Militia = Domestic Terrorists
Military = Military Industrial Complex defense
Or maybe I am just having a bad day.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You are just having a bad day.
Militia (National Guard) = Homeland defense, disaster recovery & relief, Search & Rescue.
Military = Protection of US interests abroad (Projection of Power, Police actions, and Trade Route Protection)
As an aside, the rise of Piracy in the South China Sea and Indian Oceans came about when the Soviet Union Collapsed (thus removing their ships from trade route protection) and the US Navy began downsizing in response (Remove a large portion of the US Navy from Trade Rout
Re: (Score:1)
Unfortunately the line between the Guard and the US military is very blurry and becoming moreso every day. A large number of the troops currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan are National Guard. When I deployed back in 2005 for hurricane relief (after Katrina+Rita) we were on state orders for a few days, but it wasn't long before the federal government picked up the tab (which meant a few extra benefits for us). The various state National Guard budgets receive quite a bit of money from the Federal bu
Re: (Score:2)
While some of what you stated is correct, the problem is more that people working at these secure locations are the problem. The secure networks (SIPR NET [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNET] and JWICS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JWICS]) are extremely secure. The problem with secrets leaking out is with the way people handle them, those with clearances are supposed to know how to handle the information, but in many cases, simply due to the difficulties of moving that information around in official cap
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when does everything a government does belong in the public domain? While the national security card is over played by most administrations (the previous one, in particular), it IS a valid reason to keep things secret.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, technically, they are OUR employees. The government is for the benefit of the people, not the government. Shall our protectors remove our liberties to protect us? Claiming anything national security, while having wide open borders, is a farce.
Re: (Score:1)
Well, technically, they are OUR employees. The government is for the benefit of the people, not the government. Shall our protectors remove our liberties to protect us? Claiming anything national security, while having wide open borders, is a farce.
I demand to know all of your personal secrets, sexual and medical history, and anything I may be able to use against you. Claiming anything privacy, while posting on Slashdot, is a farce.
Re: (Score:2)
sexual history? On Slashdot?! :p
Re:Public domain? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are all the lessons learned in the public domain since the Pentagon is a government agency? I'm sure there are many others like myself curious to see how supposedly top-secret issues are kept safe from prying eyes. Failure intrigues me more than success because it's through failure that we learn.
The TS/SCI networks are 100% physically separated from the Internet, and they are monitored. As a cleared government employee, I was working on a TS/SCI machine and had a typo in a URL for their intranet... I retried it several times until I realized the mistake. About a minute later, my internal phone rang and the IT department wanted to know what I was trying to do. And this was in 2000.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, while it is supposed to be physically isolated, there have been times (and I have witnessed this) where stupid admins, or rather admins under extreme pressure from higher ups to get something done, have ended up connecting machines on SIPR and JWICS to NIPR, and then forgetting to disconnect after whatever they did was done, so you end up bridging the networks, oh, there are are for some reason still plenty of analogue modem lines on some of those secured networks (although some are secured w
Re: (Score:2)
Failure intrigues me more than success because it's through failure that we learn.
Not exactly. You must be over the age of 12 [sciencedaily.com].
I hope the execution is good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I only hope that the project isn't going to become an endless money pit, at which various incompetent-but-well-connected contractors feed endlessly. A DoD remake of the FBI/SAIC farce would just be nauseous.
Re:I hope the execution is good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that we're talking about the Pentagon. The execution will be sloppy, and it will only get worse for two or three years until it becomes such a mess that the secretary of defense personally has to step in, smack some bitches and get it cleaned up. Then it will be okay, at least for a year or two.
Think I'm kidding? Look at the whole debacle with Darleen Druyun a few years back, or the more recent mess surrounding the Air Force's contract for a new tanker. In fact, I can't think of a single DOD acquisition program that has come in on budget recently, at least not among the high-ticket items symptomatic of what Secretary Gates called "next war-itis." My impression -- as a servicemember 1,400 miles outside the Beltway -- is that the Pentagon doesn't give a shit about cost overruns because it knows Congress will gladly pony up more taxpayer money at the drop of a hat to keep the military-industrial complex running smoothly.
You see, there's a precedent for the bank bailouts we just bent over to pay for: the American public has been "bailing out" Lockheed Martin and Boeing for decades.
Re:I hope the execution is good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some choice quotes...please take the time to compare to our latest Republican "leader"
Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.
If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?
In short...he is the antithesis to modern Republican behavior, an excellent leader, and a true soldier. He was also human and made mistakes...but FAR better than the "leaders" we have had over the last few decades.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
The irony is that idiots like you still label them 'republican' and 'democrat' as if that matters.
What team they play for doesn't change who the person is, our country will do a lot better when you idiots stop voting for your team and start voting for the guy that makes most sense for the job.
Re: (Score:1)
The irony is that idiots like you still label them 'republican' and 'democrat' as if that matters.
What team they play for doesn't change who the person is, our country will do a lot better when you idiots stop voting for your team and start voting for the guy that makes most sense for the job.
Go local sports team!!!
Call me when you see humans shunning group mentality, exclusion, and blind dogmatism.
Re: (Score:1)
The problem you are both referring to is called "The Lowest Bidder
it goes like this:
1)Open call for Bids- the Lowest bid that claims to solve the problem/provide the required wins.
2)Everyone underbids, in order to win the contract
3)When they have the contract in hand, they feel no compunction about going over-budget, because the US Government will happily pay.
By the way, When they bid on the contract, they are bidding on "this is how much we think it will cost and this is how much profit we are willin
Re:I hope the execution is good. (Score:4, Insightful)
In principle, the notion of securing defence networks is pretty much unobjectionable. And, if you are going to do so, doing it right the first time, rather than playing cleanup, is obviously superior.
Network security is a pretty constantly evolving thing, and something done right the first time, can still be completley undone in a couple of years if maintenance and upgrades are not tightly followed. As security threats emerge, systems have to be able to adapt to new threats, and this can be pretty costly, even for the most well developed systems.
The biggest cost to them is probably policy enforcement, when you think about how many Users the DoD has, and how many different levels of security clearance has to be enforced and maintained, the checking, reporting and acting on identified risks and threats would use an incredibly large amount of resources.
Nice to know (Score:2)
Re:Nice to know (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Hi there, Cylon Number Six. If I give you candy, will you give me ... ?
Cylons do it with candy in their mouths!
Re: (Score:2)
It didn't have to come to this. (Score:5, Informative)
The sad thing is, it didn't have to come to this. General Chilton's sharp, but his real area of expertise is space, and his command is behind the curve on cyberspace. Two recent events demonstrate this nicely.
First, and most recently, he commented on the vulnerability of the electrical grids -- that hackers, including possibly agents of foreign governments, have been able to break into power systems that are connected to the Internet. Computer security experts outside the government -- including people on SlashDot -- brought this issue up in 2001 or 2002, if not earlier. And Washington is just now aware of the problem? Now, to be fair, they might have been aware of it for years, in which case they might have recently declassified it with the intention of getting more money from Congress to "fix" the problem.
Second, and somewhat older news, is the brouhaha that is Agent.btz -- a worm that was spread onto the Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, most likely by someone who used a USB storage device to transfer data from an infected computer connected to the NIPRNet. But for the attack to succeed, the SIPRNet computers either couldn't have had antivirus software installed or had antivirus definitions that were at least six months out of date.
Now, all this is speculation on my part -- I don't have access to any information, classified or otherwise, that could corroborate this ... but given that we know how the virus spreads, it's a pretty easy conclusion to draw. But the course of events is pretty damning, given how heavily the U.S. military relies on its computer networks.
Do we need to step up security across our networks? Hells yes. But I'd rather see an Internet "militia," if you will, comprising experts from every part of the computer industry (including open source) who could collaborate with the military and with other government and non-government agencies to secure their networks from attack. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would work a lot better in my mind than trusting the security of our networks to either (A) a six-year-old checklist in the hands of an E-2 or (B) an overpaid contractor who's taking kickbacks from Microsoft, Cisco, et al, to promote one particular and proprietary solution.
Re:It didn't have to come to this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Software (even patches) for a non-secure DOD computer requires a review before it can be installed or updated. I would imagine that the requirements for SIPRNET are more strict, certainly not less. It's likely that the review was not as high a priority as it should have been.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually the problem was the autoplay on USB keys re-infecting machines every time the virus was wiped out.
Autoplay is supposed to be disabled on all Military machines but it appears that some unit's IT departments were. . . Lax.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually the problem was the autoplay on USB keys re-infecting machines every time the virus was wiped out.
Autoplay is supposed to be disabled on all Military machines but it appears that some unit's IT departments were. . . Lax.
When I was in, I brought it up to my IT guys... they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. But don't worry, they banned thumb drives a long time ago, so the problem has been solved.
Re: (Score:2)
Do we need to step up security across our networks? Hells yes. But I'd rather see an Internet "militia," if you will, comprising experts from every part of the computer industry (including open source) who could collaborate with the military and with other government and non-government agencies to secure their networks from attack.
Actually, this already exists, google for GFIST and NCRCG. I have participated in both. NCRCG to a lesser extent is primarily a reactive group, which has members from the 13 or so DOD, Federal Law Enforcement agencies and Federal Civilian agencies which are considered critical to the US infrastructure. GFIRST, is a larger group, consisting of CERT type groups and security personnel from all walks of life, banking, medical, federal law enforcement and federal civilian, local and state gov, utilities, etc,
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's all? (Score:2, Insightful)
Call me cynical, but at Pentagon Pricing(TM), that sounds like a bargain.
Put a large, inward facing firewall around china. (Score:5, Funny)
Problem Solved.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Woo-hoo! Now *China* will be outsourcing!
Who is Davis? (Score:1)
the internet (Score:2)
our government should just pull the plug on this whole internet thing and stop using it. seems too costly.
NSA wants to control cybersecurity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the NSA wanted to control cybersecurity, parading a 100 million USD expenditure over the past 6 months in front of people probably isn't going to do much of.. well.. anything.
How many trillions of dollars of expenditures are in or have been in the news in the past 6 months? 100 million is pocket change. Looks damnably reasonable, in comparison.
Re: (Score:1)
Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
If you tried to put together a single 9 man team consisting of the , it wouldn't be enough to pay them to finish the season. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Seems a bit low actually (Score:1)
Here's an idea... (Score:1)
Seriously though -- save $100 million and run a separate network. The idea that if I had the right combination of addresses and credentials I could launch a nuke right now is ludicrus. Is it really necessary to have systems that could compromise our national security connected to the internet? In this day and age? Really?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Something tells me the nuke launch systems aren't on the same network as the rest of the DOD.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though -- save $100 million and run a separate network.
Do me a favor - go read up on military networks in Wikipedia. You can start with the 25-year old MILNET [wikipedia.org] network.
You can also bet that there's networks that nobody in the public (or low-to-medium levels of military) knows.
---
The idea that if I had the right combination of addresses and credentials I could launch a nuke right now is ludicrus.
You're right, it's ludicrous. That's why the idea is never pursued, except possibly for honeypots/misinformation.
Man, I just wasted 15 minutes trying to enlighten you!
Re: (Score:1)
Seriously though -- save $100 million and run a separate network.
Do me a favor - go read up on military networks in Wikipedia. You can start with the 25-year old MILNET [wikipedia.org] network.
You can also bet that there's networks that nobody in the public (or low-to-medium levels of military) knows.
---
The idea that if I had the right combination of addresses and credentials I could launch a nuke right now is ludicrus.
You're right, it's ludicrous. That's why the idea is never pursued, except possibly for honeypots/misinformation.
Man, I just wasted 15 minutes trying to enlighten you!
You need a new moniker. Or are you trying to be funny, like the guy who is 7 feet tall and nicknamed "Small"?
Re: (Score:1)
You need a new moniker. Or are you trying to be funny, like the guy who is 7 feet tall and nicknamed "Small"?
I was trying to be funny, but over the past few months, some of my messages were marked "-1, Troll/Redundant/Off-topic", and quite rightly too. I learned a lot by being marked down.
My parent message might be modded "3, Insightful", but the last line "I just wasted 15 minutes on you" is pure flame, and I should have STFU. "My tongue weighs so little, yet I can't hold it."
I will change my moniker or create a new one, when I can write well, default to 1, and get modded 3 to 5 all the time. Especially "Funny
Did they really mean... (Score:2)
Seems likely the reporter misplaced a B with an M.
Oh and here's a somewhat related xkcd comic. http://xkcd.com/558/ [xkcd.com]
Simple: Pull the plug on the Internet (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They do, google NIPRNET SIPRNET and JWICS
SIPR and JWICS are isolated secure networks, NIPR is the non secure network that interfaces with the public internet. This is where most of the problems occur.
Stratcom is down - Watch for falling space junk. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
http://diajobs.dia.mil/
Says it all!
You just made me vomit and laugh simultaneously.