US forms task force to combat defense data leaks

A special task force has been setup by the US Army to combat theft of sensitive military information stored on computer systems of private-sector contractors. The task force, Defense Industrial Base Cyber-Security Task Force, came in to being earlier this year without much noise.

According to an army document produced in August this year for the Pentagon’s Department for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics and first reported last week by Inside Defense:

“Exfiltrations of unclassified data from [military contractor computer] systems have occurred and continue to occur, potentially undermining and even neutralizing the technological advantage and combat effectiveness of the future force,”

“Current … efforts largely focus on mitigating risks of compromise to war-fighting technologies as a result of traditional espionage or industrial theft,”

“hostile actors can exfiltrate large volumes of unclassified program information in a single attack that can potentially net enough information to enable adversaries to narrow a capability gap.”

Sure this initiative will bear fruit but I think more needs to be done within the Government security departments to combat potential cyber security threats. Only this week I saw Airport Security personnel hooked up on MSN.com at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport on a light day. Open Internet is a risky area for airport security personnel don’t you think?

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