Tighter Defense budget may mean tighter cybersecurity

President Obama's quest to shave $400 billion off the Pentagon's budget by 2023 may have the positive effect of forcing the services to eliminate redundant cybersecurity programs and combine networks Defensewide, senior Pentagon officials said Friday.

Budget analysts say the department's 2012 proposal for spending $3.2 billion on information assurance may contain duplicative spending because the services each have their own characterizations of what constitutes "cybersecurity" systems, services and staff. For example, the Air Force says it plans to spend $4.6 billion on cybersecurity next year, but, according to department-level officials, the service's projection includes items that the department does not consider information assurance or cybersecurity.

The confusion over cybersecurity needs was acknowledged by several Pentagon cyber officers at a lunch organized by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

In undergoing combat training, "every airman has to have a certain understanding of cyber and we're trying to define that," said Maj. Gen. Edward "Ed" L. Bolton Jr., Air Force director of cyber and space operations.

Mark Orndorff, director of mission assurance and network operations at the Defense Information Systems Agency, predicted the looming budget cuts will root out overlapping endeavors and force the services to work in tandem on securing IT assets. This already is happening at the U.S. Cyber Command, where forces from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are coordinating to centralize cyberspace operations, the officials said.

"We have a great motivator called a budget problem that will push us," Orndorff said. "I want to not have service-owned infrastructure. I want to have joint infrastructure. We're pushing it forward quickly."

But for all its practicality, the notion of sharing systems is not necessarily embraced by all technology managers, one Defense official said in an interview following the event.

For instance, the difficult part of transitioning to a single network at the Air Force is not incompatible tools, limited staffing or unreliable connectivity in the theater -- it is people who do not want to give up control of their operations, he said. As of April, 21 distinct networks were hooked up to nearly 2 million devices, according to Gen. William L. Shelton, commander of the Air Force Space Command.

Standardizing security operations is important because the military is supposed to be supplying soldiers with mission-critical information along every mile in the field, Bolton said.

Brig. Gen. John "Bob" R. Ranck Jr., Air Force director of warfighter systems integration, added, "The movement of information, the movement of forces across a theater the size of Iraq or Afghanistan is an incredible information transport challenge."

Troops should not be required to carry three computers in their rucksacks to access disparate applications for the intelligence they need, he said.

"Air Force squad crews should not be researchers," Ranck noted. "We need to think about these systems so that we're thinking in terms of a network."