Mullen says Defense thumb-drive ban to remain in effect for now

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week the Defense Department's ban on thumb drives will not be lifted anytime soon.

Adm. Mike Mullen, speaking to enlisted personnel of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., said the Defense ban on thumb drives and other removable storage media was put in place because troops violated policies regulating their use. In response to a question from a soldier about the ban, Mullen said the restriction, which was put in place November 2008, resulted from "contamination of some of our classified networks, because we moved thumb droves illegally from our unclassified side to our classified side."

A cyber savvy enemy can take advantage of that mistake, he said, so adherence to security policies and practices falls on everyone in Defense, not just information technology specialists. "Everyone that has a machine, whatever [the] classification level, has got to pay more attention to this, because the enemy is watching and listening and very smart, and [poor cybersecurity] can hurt us pretty bad," Mullen told the soldiers.

"I don't see any lifting of the thumb drive restriction right around the corner."

Lt. Col. William Geesey, product manager for the Army's Medical Communications for Combat Care, which provides computers to health care personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he understands the importance of the ban and the need to adhere to security polices. But writing in the January MC4 newsletter, he said the ban on removable storage media has had a "profound effect" on battlefield medical recordkeeping. The MC4 has supplied 10,000 handheld computers to combat medics deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, all of whom store data on removable secure digital cards.

"By prohibiting use of SD cards with MC4 handhelds, the devices for recording patient care are rendered useless," Geesey wrote.

MC4 also issued laptops and servers so doctors can use electronic medical records on the battlefield. The removable storage media ban makes it difficult to perform software upgrades. "Previously, MC4's deployed technical support team carried software updates and patches on a single thumb drive or on a portable hard drive," Geesey wrote. "The new order now requires support personnel to perform system maintenance using multiple CD-ROMs and DVDs, media that has historically failed to withstand theater wear and tear. As a result, MC4's support services have slowed. Performing system upgrades via the Web remains impractical due to a continued strain on bandwidth."

MC4 has not yet developed a viable alternative to SD cards, a spokesman said.