Cyber Security ‘Needs Industry Involvement’
The military needs help from the private sector to build more comprehensive cyber warfare capabilities, according to a US military officer.
Brigadier General Charles Shugg, deputy commander of the 24th Air Force, the US Air Force division responsible for cyber security, told the Cyber Warfare 2010 conference in London that it was essential to build close partnerships with civilian companies given increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
Shugg said: “We have come to realise that the private sector is leading the way in the cyber domain. We have got to a point where we feel we should bring them into our planning and, as much as we can, into our organisations."
Shugg argued that the complex threats now posed by cyber criminals mean traditional procurement processes are obsolete. He said: “We have got to [respond] within days and hours...and the only way to do that is to work with industry partners.”
Cyber Warfare 2010
The Cyber Warfare 2010 conference at Canary Wharf in London saw delegates from industry, government and military. Countries represented were the UK, USA, Denmark, Netherlands, Estonia, Greece, Germany, Italy and Sweden.
The event was primarily focused on evolving cyber threats, how national cyber security could be improved and how the threat of international military cyber attacks could be mitigated. Other issues explored included policy development, current and future legal issues and political pressures and technology updates.
Cyberterrorism
Coinciding with the conference was a two-day visit to the UK by the US deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, who urged greater international co-operation to defeat existing threats and those likely to become more serious, especially the threat of cyberterrorism. His comments, of course, came in the wake of the alleged cyber attacks on Google by China.
Lynn said: “You can’t just protect the system by defending yourself from inside your own country. International co-operation is imperative for establishing the chain of events in an intrusion and quickly and decisively fighting back...You can’t just sit behind firewalls. You need an active defence that is seeking out and countering threats on the internet.”
Source – Security International’s UK Correspondent
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