cyber vulnerabilities to dod systems may include

Indeed, Nyes extension of deterrence to cyberspace incorporates four deterrence mechanisms: threat of punishment, denial by defense, entanglement, and normative taboos.13 This is precisely because of the challenges associated with relying solely on military power and punishment logics to achieve cyber deterrence. Making sure leaders and their staff are cyber fluent at every level so they all know when decisions can help or harm cybersecurity. The most common configuration problem is not providing outbound data rules. systems. which may include automated scanning/exploitation tools, physical inspection, document reviews, and personnel interviews. 64 As DOD begins to use and incorporate emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence, into its weapons platforms and systems, cybersecurity will also need to be incorporated into the early stages of the acquisitions process. (Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation, 2018), O-1; Scott Boston et al., Assessing the Conventional Force Imbalance in Europe: Implications for Countering Russian Local Superiority, Gordon Lubold and Dustin Volz, Navy, Industry Partners Are Under Cyber Siege by Chinese Hackers, Review Asserts,, https://www.wsj.com/articles/navy-industry-partners-are-under-cyber-siege-review-asserts-11552415553. 40 DOD Office of Inspector General, Audit of the DoDs Management of the Cybersecurity Risks for Government Purchase Card Purchases of the Commercial Off-the-Shelf Items, i. While the Pentagon report has yet to be released, a scathing report on Defense Department weapons systems [2] published early this October by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) [] Overall, its estimated that 675,000 residents in the county were impacted. Multiplexers for microwave links and fiber runs are the most common items. Then, in part due to inconsistencies in compliance, verification, and enforcement in the cybersecurity standards established in DFARS, in 2019 DOD issued the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, which created new, tiered cybersecurity standards for defense contractors and was meant to build on the 2016 DFARS requirement.54 However, this has resulted in confusion about requirements, and the process for independently auditing and verifying compliance remains in nascent stages of development.55 At the same time, in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress took legislative action to ban government procurement of or contracting with entities that procure telecommunications technologies from specific Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE, and affiliated organizations. But the second potential impact of a network penetration - the physical effects - are far more worrisome. Tomas Minarik, Raik Jakschis, and Lauri Lindstrom (Tallinn: NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, 2018), available at ; Thomas Rid, Cyber War Will Not Take Place (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 47 Ibid., 25. Most control system networks are no longer directly accessible remotely from the Internet. 5 (2014), 977. It, therefore, becomes imperative to train staff on avoiding phishing threats and other tactics to keep company data secured. , Adelphi Papers 171 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies. Vulnerabilities simply refer to weaknesses in a system. DOD and the Department of Energy have been concerned about vulnerabilities within the acquisitions process for emerging technologies for over a decade.51 Insecure hardware or software at any point in the supply chain could compromise the integrity of the ultimate product being delivered and provide a means for adversaries to gain access for malicious purposes. Falcon 9 Starlink L24 rocket successfully launches from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, April 28, 2021 (U.S. Space Force/Joshua Conti), Educating, Developing and Inspiring National Security Leadership, Photo By: Mark Montgomery and Erica Borghard, Summary: Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, (Washington, DC: Department of Defense [DOD], 2018), available at <, 8/Sep/18/2002041658/-1/-1/1/CYBER_STRATEGY_SUMMARY_FINAL.PDF, Achieve and Maintain Cyberspace Superiority: Command Vision for U.S. Cyber Command, (Washington, DC: U.S. Cyber Command, 2018), available at <, https://www.cybercom.mil/Portals/56/Documents/USCYBERCOM%20Vision%20April%202018.pdf?ver=2018-06-14-152556-010, The United States has long maintained strategic ambiguity about how to define what constitutes a, in any domain, including cyberspace, and has taken a more flexible stance in terms of the difference between a. as defined in the United Nations charter. Man-in-the-middle attacks can be performed on control system protocols if the attacker knows the protocol he is manipulating. A surgical attacker needs a list of the point reference numbers in use and the information required to assign meaning to each of those numbers. Hall, eds.. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), for a more extensive list of success criteria. This page contains a web-friendly version of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's Binding Operational Directive 19-02, "Vulnerability Remediation Requirements for Internet-Accessible Systems". 1 Build a more lethal. A person who is knowledgeable in process equipment, networks, operating systems and software applications can use these and other electronic means to gain access to the CS. Most Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) identify themselves and the vendor who made them. For instance, the typical feared scenario is the equivalent of a cyber Pearl Harbor or a cyber 9/11 eventa large-scale cyberattack against critical U.S. infrastructure that causes significant harm to life or property.34 This line of thinking, however, risks missing the ostensibly more significant threat posed by stealthy cyberspace activities that could undermine the stability of conventional or nuclear deterrence. Imagine you were to assess the risk associated with a cyber attack compromising a particular operating system. By Mark Montgomery and Erica Borghard Most control systems have some mechanism for engineers on the business LAN to access the control system LAN. With attention focused on developing and integrating AI capabilities into applications and workflows, the security of AI systems themselves is often . See the Cyberspace Solarium Commissions recent report, available at <, Cong., Pub. 1 (2015), 5367; Nye, Deterrence and Dissuasion, 4952. 6. Perhaps most distressingly, the GAO has been warning about these cyber vulnerabilities since the mid-1990s. 3 (January 2020), 4883. . Foreign Intelligence Entity (FIE) is defined in DoD Directive 5240.06 as "any known or suspected foreign organization, person, or group (public, private, or . April 29, 2019. Managing Clandestine Military Capabilities in Peacetime Competition,, terminology, see Zack Cooper, Bad Idea: Great Power Competition Terminology (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 1, 2020), available at <, https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-great-power-competition-terminology/. Unfortunately, in many cases when contractors try to enhance their security, they face a lot of obstacles that prevent them from effectively keeping their data and infrastructure protected. Additionally, an attacker will dial every extension in the company looking for modems hung off the corporate phone system. The two most valuable items to an attacker are the points in the data acquisition server database and the HMI display screens. Capabilities are going to be more diverse and adaptable. 15 See James D. Fearon, Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying Hands Versus Sinking Costs, Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, no. 33 Austin Long, A Cyber SIOP? The business firewall is administered by the corporate IT staff and the control system firewall is administered by the control system staff. A backup control center is used in more critical applications to provide a secondary control system if there is a catastrophic loss of the main system. These include the SolarWinds breach,1 ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline2 and the JBS meat processing company,3 and a compromise of the email systems of the U.S. Agency for International Development.4 U.S. officials have indicated their belief that Russia either sponsored . Its worth noting, however, that ransomware insurance can have certain limitations contractors should be aware of. To effectively improve DOD cybersecurity, the MAD Security team recommends the following steps: Companies should first determine where they are most vulnerable. Abstract For many years malicious cyber actors have been targeting the industrial control systems (ICS) that manage our critical infrastructures. This is, of course, an important question and one that has been tackled by a number of researchers. Cyber vulnerabilities in the private sector pose a serious threat to national security, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said., What we know from past experience is that information about U.S. weapons is sought after. 48 Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, Chief Systems Engineer, Naval Systems of Systems Systems Engineering Guidebook, Volume II, Version 2.0 (Washington, DC: Headquarters Department of the Navy, November 6, 2006), 3. We also describe the important progress made in the fiscal year (FY) 2021 NDAA, which builds on the commissions recommendations. Streamlining public-private information-sharing. The FY21 NDAA makes important progress on this front. The attacker is also limited to the commands allowed for the currently logged-in operator. 23 For some illustrative examples, see Robert Jervis, Some Thoughts on Deterrence in the Cyber Era, Journal of Information Warfare 15, no. Nevertheless, policymakers attention to cyber threats to conventional and nuclear deterrence has been drowned out by other concernssome of which are inflatedin the cyber domain. Moreover, the process of identifying interdependent vulnerabilities should go beyond assessing technical vulnerabilities to take a risk management approach to drive prioritization given the scope and scale of networked systems. In order for a force structure element for threat-hunting across DODIN to have more seamless and flexible maneuver, DOD should consider developing a process to reconcile the authorities and permissions to enable threat-hunting across all DODIN networks, systems, and programs. Directly helping all networks, including those outside the DOD, when a malicious incident arises. However, adversaries could hold these at risk in cyberspace, potentially undermining deterrence. large versionFigure 5: Business LAN as backbone. On the communications protocol level, the devices are simply referred to by number. Information shared in this channel may include cyber threat activity, cyber incident details, vulnerability information, mitigation strategies, and more. Indeed, Congress chartered the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act to develop a consensus on a strategic approach to defending the United States in cyberspace against cyberattacks of significant consequences.3 There is also a general acknowledgment of the link between U.S. cyber strategy below and above the threshold of armed conflict in cyberspace. While cyberspace affords opportunities for a diversity of threat actors to operate in the domain, including nonstate actors and regional state powers, in addition to Great Powers, the challenges of developing and implementing sophisticated cyber campaigns that target critical defense infrastructure typically remain in the realm of more capable nation-state actors and their proxies. (Washington, DC: DOD, February 2018), available at <, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF, ; Jon Lindsay, Digital Strangelove: The Cyber Dangers of Nuclear Weapons,, https://www.lawfareblog.com/digital-strangelove-cyber-dangers-nuclear-weapons, >; Paul Bracken, The Cyber Threat to Nuclear Stability,, William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, AY22-23 North Campus Key Academic Dates Calendar, Digital Signature and Encryption Controls in MS Outlook, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ232/PLAW-115publ232.pdf, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil. 115232August 13, 2018, 132 Stat. It is common to find RTUs with the default passwords still enabled in the field. This led to a backlash, particularly among small- to medium-sized subcontractors, about their ability to comply, which resulted in an interim clarification.56, Moreover, ownership of this procurement issue remains decentralized, with different offices both within and without DOD playing important roles. Objective. See, for example, Martin C. Libicki, Brandishing Cyberattack Capabilities (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2013); Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long, Conceal or Reveal? Foreign Intelligence Entities seldom use the Internet or other communications including social networking services as a collection method a. Many breaches can be attributed to human error. 37 DOD Office of Inspector General, Audit of the DoDs Management of the Cybersecurity Risks for Government Purchase Card Purchases of the Commercial Off-the-Shelf Items, Report No. An attacker could also chain several exploits together . To strengthen congressional oversight and drive continued progress and attention toward these issues, the requirement to conduct periodic vulnerability assessments should also include an after-action report that includes current and planned efforts to address cyber vulnerabilities of interdependent and networked weapons systems in broader mission areas, with an intent to gain mission assurance of these platforms. An official website of the United States Government. If cybersecurity requirements are tacked on late in the process, or after a weapons system has already been deployed, the requirements are far more difficult and costly to address and much less likely to succeed.53 In 2016, DOD updated the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS), establishing cybersecurity requirements for defense contractors based on standards set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. By Continuing to use this site, you are consenting to the use of cookies. The target must believe that the deterring state has both the capabilities to inflict the threatening costs and the resolve to carry out a threat.14 A deterring state must therefore develop mechanisms for signaling credibility to the target.15 Much of the Cold War deterrence literature focused on the question of how to convey resolve, primarily because the threat to use nuclear weaponsparticularly in support of extended deterrence guarantees to allieslacks inherent credibility given the extraordinarily high consequences of nuclear weapons employment in comparison to any political objective.16 This raises questions about decisionmakers willingness to follow through on a nuclear threat. Koch and Golling, Weapons Systems and Cyber Security, 191. 34 See, for example, Emily O. Goldman and Michael Warner, Why a Digital Pearl Harbor Makes Sense . Administration of the firewalls is generally a joint effort between the control system and IT departments. He reiterated . The literature on nuclear deterrence theory is extensive. Using this simple methodology, a high-level calculation of cyber risk in an IT infrastructure can be developed: Cyber risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Information Value. Figure 1. 1 Summary: Department of Defense Cyber Strategy 2018 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense [DOD], 2018), available at ; Achieve and Maintain Cyberspace Superiority: Command Vision for U.S. Cyber Command (Washington, DC: U.S. Cyber Command, 2018), available at ; An Interview with Paul M. Nakasone, Joint Force Quarterly 92 (1st Quarter 2019), 67. Communications including social cyber vulnerabilities to dod systems may include services as a collection method a the communications protocol level, the Security of AI themselves. For engineers on the communications protocol level, the GAO has been warning about these vulnerabilities. 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