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GCN Home > 01/22/07 issue

Defense domain, civilian awareness

Elder, Garcia walk two sides of the cybersecurity beat

By Patience Wait, GCN Staff

The world of combat has expanded to include cyberspace as a battlefield. Two men are now responsible for protecting the United States in cyberspace—Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, who heads the Pentagon’s strategic efforts in waging cyberwar, and Gregory Garcia, who handles the defense of the nation’s cyberassets.

Garcia is the first assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications at the Homeland Security Department. It is he who worries about how to prepare American society—government, commercial interests and individual citizens—to protect themselves from assaults on their electronic assets, whether home computers or nationwide networks.

The White House appointed Garcia, a former vice president for information security programs at the Information Te

Image: Rick Steele
DHS’ Gregory Garcia
chnology Association of America trade association in Arlington, Va., in September. His former colleagues were pleased with the pick, but did not hesitate to suggest his priorities.

“I think the first thing is to do the job of making the department more aware of cyber issues and of being a champion for cybersecurity,” said Joe Tasker, ITAA’s senior vice president of government affairs. “We’re now at a place where 90 percent of American businesses are on the Internet ... The ubiquity and power of the networks is becoming inescapable.”

On the offensive side of the equation, Air Force secretary Michael Wynne made it clear when he approved the creation of a Cyber Command that combat already is taking place in cyberspace.

“[T]he cyberspace domain contains the same seeds for criminal, private, transnational and government-sponsored mischief as we have contended with in the domains of land, sea, air and now contemplate as space continues to mature,” Wynne said in November. “In cyberspace, our military, America and indeed all of world commerce face the challenge of modern-day pirates, of many stripes and kinds, stealing money, harassing our families and threatening our ability to fight on ground, air, land and in space.”

Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force, based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., is the first head of the Cyber Command. The 8th Air Force already had many cyberspace capabilities, including intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare, and the creation of this major command gives Elder the responsibility for creating “cyberspace warriors,” who can react to any threats 24/7, he said.

More news on related topics: IT Security, Defense IT, Homeland Security, IT Management



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