Fergie's Tech Blog

Defense Tech: Counter Cyber Intelligence

Kevin Coleman writes on DefenseTech:

Professional spies in the service of nation states, businesses, organized crime and terrorist organizations target and steal secret information from the public and private sectors to use and sell. Traditional foreign espionage efforts attack the heart of national security and any country's well-being. Non-traditional espionage efforts attack the competitiveness and prosperity of our businesses.

When you add the recent increases in cyber intelligence collection efforts, the threat has risen to unprecedented levels and triggered numerous warnings from experts around the globe. To put this threat in perspective, in the 2008 Top Ten Cyber Security Menaces by the SANS Institute, cyber espionage ranked number three. In order to counter this threat, you need to understand counter intelligence and counter cyber intelligence.

Counter Intelligence (CI) is defined as the efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent adversaries or enemy intelligence organizations from gathering and collecting sensitive information or intelligence about them. Many governments create counter intelligence organizations separate and distinct from their intelligence collection counterparts.

Counter Cyber Intelligence (CCI) is defined as all efforts made by one intelligence organization to prevent adversaries, enemy intelligence organizations or criminal organizations from gathering and collecting sensitive digital information or intelligence about them via computers, networks and associated equipment. CCI are measures to identify, penetrate, or neutralize computer operations that use cyber weapons as a means and mechanism to collect information.

posted by Fergie @ 3/09/2009 11:08:00 AM