Air Force Network Admins Found Out About Drone Virus Through News Story

Nemesisghost writes "Wired's Danger Room reports that the network admins of the 24th Air Force found out about the virus infecting the drone cockpits at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada by reading the earlier news article. Quoting: 'Not only were officials in charge kept out of the loop about an infection in America’s weapon and surveillance system of choice, but the surprise surrounding that infection highlights a flaw in the way the U.S. military secures its information infrastructure: There’s no one in the Defense Department with his hand on the network switch. In fact, there is no one switch to speak of. The four branches of the U.S. armed forces each has a dedicated unit that, in theory, is supposed to handle cyber defense for the entire service. ... In practice, it’s not that simple. Unlike most big private enterprises, the 24th doesn’t have a centralized system for managing and monitoring its networks. There’s no place at the 24th’s San Antonio headquarters where someone could see all the digital traffic hurtling through the service’s pipes.'"

Comments

YAY

[bobstreo]

Compartmentalization AND Security through obscurity.

You can't make this stuff up.

Re:YAY

[Ihmhi]

It is kinda insane. The Army, Navy, Marines, and (of course) Air Force all have flying vehicles. I think if it flies, it should be handled by the Air Force, period. If you need special forces stuff like SOAR, then they should be an air forces special division. Similarly, the Navy ought to handle the boats (save for the Coast Guard, which is separate for a good reason), the Army should handle infantry, etc.

I really don't get why there's all these branches of the military with overlapping roles - branches who don't talk to one another. That's how stuff like this happens. You really need one organization to handle something like networking but you end up with 4 or 5. Bureaucracy at its finest!

What?

[gottabeme]

What you've just suggested is the same error clueless bureaucrats make about technology, except in reverse; the other side of the same coin.

PHBs who have no idea how computers or networks work say to organize or administrate them in a way that makes sense for organizing tangible items with physical problems, but utterly fails when applied to computers.

You have suggested organizing the branches of the military according to the way a computer network should be organized. Worse, you've suggested this not only regarding the branches' computer networks, but also regarding military operations.

Not only do you ignore the inter-service cooperation that already exists, but you ignore the pointless extra division that your idea would entail, like having AF pilots flying aircraft off carriers or flying Blackhawks full of Army troops. In both cases, the AF pilots would be working exclusively with members of the other branch, so what would the point be of having them under a different CoC? They'd end up assigned to TDY under another branch...in which case they might as well be in that branch in the first place. It really doesn't help unit cohesion to have artificial divisions between, e.g. the chopper pilots and the troops they carry around and support.

Are you even aware that the Marines are under the Department of the Navy? Sheesh.