Defense Science Board Task Force Report:
Resilient Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat
EXTRACT
After conducting an 18-month study, this Task Force concluded that the cyber threat is serious and that the United States cannot be confident that our critical Information Technology (IT) systems will work under attack from a sophisticated and well-resourced opponent utilizing cyber capabilities in combination with all of their military and intelligence capabilities (a “full spectrum” adversary). While this is also true for others (e.g. Allies, rivals, and public/private networks), this Task Force strongly believes the DoD needs to take the lead and build an effective response to measurably increase confidence in the IT systems we depend on (public and at the same time decrease a would-be attacker's confidence in the effectiveness of their capabilities to compromise DoD systems. This conclusion was developed upon several factors, including the success adversaries have had penetrating our networks; the relative ease that our Red Teams have in disrupting, or completely beating, our forces in exercises using exploits available on the Internet; and the weak cyber hygiene position of DoD networks and systems. The Task Force believes that the recommendations of this report create the basis for astrategy to address this broad and pervasive threat.
Phi Beta Iota: What we have now is a hopeless mess. Everyone ignored the common sense professional advice of the experts who in 1994 were twenty years ahead of their time, and now all of the flags are either totally corrupt or totally unwilling to rock the boat (a form of corruption). The DSB does good work and merit great regard. However, the reality is that for the long run, nothing less than “all in” on Open Source Everything (OSE) will do. There is no one now serving who has the combination of intelligence and integrity to actually pursue that course.
See Also:
1994 Sounding the Alarm on Cyber-Security
