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According to reports, only 1% of defense firms in the US utilize Department of Defense’s security services. Why is that?

Although US companies must adhere to certain cyber security standards set by the DoD, these days most companies cooperate with the DoD after suffering a major cyber incident. While there are many services that the DoD offers for free, on-site network assessments, sharing threat intelligence, shoring up email security, providing protective DNS, and more, David McKeown, the Pentagon’s acting principal deputy CIO, said that “there is a little bit of reluctance for a company to share anything with us. Like if we were to go in and take a look at their network and find out that it is abysmal. They wouldn’t want that information to be leaked,”. It seems that company privacy and a reluctance to share classified information with a major government facility drive many companies away from working with the DoD voluntarily.

“It’s a public-policy challenge too, especially when the Defense Department is expected to defend the nation from a missile attack but not a cyber-attack”, said Sen. Mike Rounds, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Cyber security.

“If you were to ask someone in the public, who’s responsible for defending me against an incoming missile attack, well, everybody would say it’s the Pentagon, it’s the Department of Defense. But what about an incoming attack on a cyber system? Well, why wouldn’t it be the Department of Defense? And yet the Department of Defense does not work within the United States, Homeland Security does.” Continued Sen. Rounds, writes defenseone.com.

That arrangement means there’s coordination and information sharing between DOD and DHS, which connects with companies through voluntary arrangements. If this coordination isn’t executed as fast as companies expect, this too might drive them away from working with government departments.

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