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Pentagon approves creation of cyber command

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-24 09:53

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will create a Cyber Command to oversee the US military's efforts to protect its computer networks and operate in cyberspace, under an order signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday.

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The new headquarters, likely to be based at Fort Meade, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., will be responsible for defending US military systems but not other US government or private networks, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Asked if the command would be capable of offensive operations as well as protecting the Department of Defense, Whitman declined to answer directly.

"This command is going to focus on the protection and operation of DoD's networks," he said. "This command is going to do what is necessary to be able to do that."

Whitman said the new command will consolidate existing Pentagon efforts to protect its networks and operate in cyberspace.

Those efforts currently come under the auspices of US Strategic Command in Nebraska, which will also oversee the new headquarters.

The US Department of Defense runs some 15,000 electronic networks and runs some 7 million computers and other information technology devices, Whitman said.

"Our defense networks are constantly probed. There are millions of scans every day," he said.

"The power to disrupt and destroy, once the sole province of nations, now also rests with small groups and individuals, from terrorist groups to organized crime to industrial spies to hacker activists, to teenage hackers," he said.

"We also know that foreign governments are trying to develop offensive cyber capabilities," he added, saying more than 100 foreign intelligence services were trying to hack into US networks.

The new command should begin initial operations by this October and be fully up and running a year later.

The head of the Cyber Command would also be the director of the US National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance and communications interception and is also based at Fort Meade.

President Barack Obama said last month he would name a White House-level czar to coordinate government efforts to fight cybercrime.