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U.S. intelligence agencies have designated cyberattacks as the most alarming threat to national security. The federal government is spending roughly $10 billion a year to protect the nation’s digital infrastructure, but hackers, some sponsored by nation-states, are successfully infiltrating civilian and military networks.
Several of the U.S. top cybersecurity labs are housed in nondescript office buildings with no government seals or signs, according to a new report from the AP, after its journalists recently paid rare visits to two key civilian and military cybercenters. Inside the Arlington, Virginia-based National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, about 100 specialists monitor digital maps of the United States and the world, along with streams of data and breaking news. States are color-coded from green to red, signifying the threat level of an attack from low to severe.
“It’s not inconceivable another country would try to take down our network,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Eric Rosenbach, the Pentagon’s principal cybersecurity adviser told homelandsecuritynewswire. “But if they do, we’re resilient and it pops back up.”
Cybersecurity professionals are in high demand, but a significant portion of top specialists are working for the private sector, where they can earn double federal salaries, which average $80,000 a year. The Pentagon recently announced plans to triple its cyberwarrior force to 6,000 by the end of 2016, and the Justice Department is increasing its recruitment of cyber professionals and contractors.
Professionals from DHS, the Pentagon, and private contractors all work together in U.S. cyber centers to detect, prevent, respond, and mitigate incoming and existing cyberattacks. The federal “Einstein” program, a software system that scans government networks for malware, viruses, and hacking activity has discovered several attacks as they are occurring. Omaha World Herald reports that frequently, teams travel directly to infected computers to disconnect them off the federal cyber network.
The Defense Department’s Defense Cyber Crime Center in Linthicum, Maryland, handles infected military computers. There cyber professionals extract information from devices seized from battlefields, military crime scenes, and federal employees whose computers may have been hacked. In many cases, computers cannot be turned on until they are placed inside a sealed box, designed to prevent Wi-Fi signals from reaching or being sent from the devices.
