Fergie's Tech Blog

Air Force CIO: Cyber Security is Federal 'Achilles' Heel'

Jill R. Aitoro writes on NextGOV:

Until best practices in information security become pervasive across all aspects of the enterprise, agencies' networks remain at risk, said a top technology chief with the Air Force at a conference Wednesday, calling cybersecurity one of the federal government's most overlooked and critical weaknesses.

"There's too much fighting about cyber -- how big [a concern] it is, who owns it," said Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, chief information officer at the Air Force, during a keynote at Air Force IT Day, sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association of Northern Virginia.

"This is our Achilles' heel," he said. "It's not about a denial-of-service attack; it's about the information on the network -- ensuring it's accurate, protected, and available. [But] we're still fighting over what patch to put on."

Despite Russia's cyberwarfare tactics against Estonia and Georgia, Peterson said an all-out cyberwar won't happen; instead, cyberattacks will become one of many combat strategies used by adversaries to bring government to its knees.

posted by Fergie @ 12/03/2008 08:50:00 PM