New US command to focus on cyber battlefield

WASHINGTON – The US military is moving ahead with plans to create its first "cyber command" designed to bolster America's potential to wage digital warfare as well as defend against mounting cyber threats, officials said on Friday.

After President Barack Obama announced Friday his plans to overhaul cyber security policy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to soon formally propose the new cyber command that will be overseen by a four-star officer, Pentagon officials told Agence France-Presse.

The move reflects a shift in military strategy with "cyber dominance" now part of US war doctrine and growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere.

US officials say China has built up a sophisticated cyber warfare program and that a spate of intrusions in the United States and elsewhere can be traced back to Chinese sources.

Defense officials say the cyber command would focus on security efforts for US networks along with offensive capabilities to ensure "freedom of action in cyberspace" to protect America's interests.

The precise details of US cyber military power remain secret, but it includes technology capable of penetrating and jamming networks, including the classified Suter airborne system, analysts say.

The technology has been reportedly added to unmanned aircraft and allows for users to take over enemy sensors to "see what enemy sensors see, and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions so that approaching aircraft can't be seen," according to Aviation Week.

Speculation has persisted that Israel may have used the technology in a 2007 air raid against a Syrian construction site.

The new US military cyber center would be placed initially under US Strategic Command, which is already leading the military's cyber security efforts, and be located at Fort Meade in Maryland.

The officer widely expected to lead the command is Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, the director of the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA).

By naming Alexander, the Obama administration may be hoping to resolve a long-running feud over which agency should have authority over cyber warfare and security.

Civil liberties' activists have warned against allowing the secretive NSA to take the lead in overseeing cyber security, saying it would place too much power in one agency with the NSA policing the same networks that it exploits to carry out eavesdropping.

In unveiling his plans to create a new White House post to oversee cyber security, Obama promised privacy rights would be carefully safeguarded even as the government moves to step up efforts to protect sensitive civilian and military networks.

Alexander has described cyberspace as the new military frontier that could shape the future of US national security, comparing it to sea or air power.

"Maintaining freedom of action in cyberspace in the 21st century is as inherent to US interests as freedom of the seas was in the 19th century, and access to air and space in the 20th century," Alexander told a congressional hearing earlier this month.

He said new realities had forced the Pentagon to place a higher priority on cyberspace.

"The rapid expansion and global dependence upon cyberspace required the defense department to evolve its warfighting doctrine to include cyberspace as a viable domain on par with the domains of land, sea, air and space," he said.

Obama's new cyber policy comes as gangs of cyber criminals, foreign intelligence services, industrial spies and hackers increasingly prey on US networks, according to various studies.

There have been reported breaches of the US electricity grid and the F-35 fighter jet program, and Obama mentioned a cyber attack – blamed by some accounts on foreign spy services – on the computer hub for his own 2008 presidential campaign. Agence France-Presse