US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats

CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "

Comments

dupe first, ask questions later dept

[zappepcs]

It still means bad things are about to happen when the defense team is studying offense tactics

Re:dupe first, ask questions later dept

[Opportunist]

In the face of this development, the "Time to live" header field gets a whole new meaning...

I can see the press release now.

[baudilus]

Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense.

"...and they tried to hit us with a DDoS, so we totally pwned those script kiddies. It wasn't hard, they were teh suk..."

Defense.

[headkase]

Having hackers for offence is all and good but when it comes to defense they need to train the programmers of the "critical infrastructure" in security techniques. And also perform regular penetration testing on the infrastructure correcting any problems they find as they go. So basically the hackers would not only be hacking other nations but they would continually have to try to hack their own as well to defend it.