Subject: [NEXTEL-1] DOD: Systems need more protection

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 09:21:38 -0400

DOD: Systems need more protection
BY Matthew French
July 28, 2003

The Defense Department must do more to guard against cyber threats, said Robert
Lentz, the department's director of information assurance. "As our dependence on
information networks increases, it creates new vulnerabilities, as adversaries
develop new ways of attacking and disrupting U.S. forces," he said. "Everyone must
be made aware of his or her role in assuring the nation's information."

Lentz, speaking late last week to a House Subcommittee on terrorism,
unconventional threats and capabilities, said that in recent years the department
has become more reliant on off-the-shelf products proven in the commercial world.
But some experts said that off-the-shelf code can require frequent security
patches because holes repeatedly emerge in commercial code.  And off-the-shelf
software mainly comes from people with no security clearance or workers in other
countries.

Foreign labor "has been wonderful for the economy," said Eugene Spafford, a Purdue
University professor and director of the school's Center for Education and
Research and Information Assurance and Security. "But it has introduced tremendous
vulnerability to our software."

Much of the commercial software used by defense agencies was never meant for use
in a military environment, or subjected to the ferocity of attacks often seen by
defense networks.  Last year alone the department defended itself against 50,000
attack attempts to gain access to the network, Lentz said.

Robert Dacey, director of the General Accounting Office's technology team,
credited DOD with being one of the most advanced agencies for information
assurance. However, a GAO report released last week said the department lacks
policies needed to tightly guard data and ways to enforce the policies it does
have. Although the department has an Information Assurance Program, officials
don't have a way to measure compliance with the government's security policies,
according to the report.

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0728/web-dod-07-28-03.asp

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