[ISN] NSA Director Tapped For Cyber Command

http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220700278

By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
October 20, 2009 

President Obama has, as expected, nominated National Security Agency 
director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander to be promoted to the rank of general 
and assigned as commander of the new United States Cyber Command.

The Cyber Command, announced this summer, will be in charge of 
cyberwarfare and the security of military networks. It will be based in 
Ft. Meade, Md., where the National Security Agency is also 
headquartered, and will be part of the U.S. Strategic Command.

Defense secretary Robert Gates urged Alexander's appointment in a June 
memo, when he formally created Cyber Command. A month earlier, Alexander 
said in testimony before the House Armed Services committee that it was 
vital for the military to combine some of its existing cybersecurity 
efforts. "The way we're approaching [cybersecurity] today does not 
work," he said. "We can put the defense and the offense together for the 
good of the department. The rapid expansion and global dependence upon 
cyberspace require[s] the Defense Department to evolve its warfighting 
doctrine to include cyberspace as a viable domain on par with the 
domains of the land, sea, air and space."

In anticipation of the possible creation of a broad military 
cybersecurity effort, Alexander this spring became acting director of 
the Joint Task Force -- Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO), which heads 
up the operation and cybersecurity of Department of Defense networks. 
JTF-GNO will dissolve next year, and its operations roles will revert to 
the Defense Information Systems Agency.

[...]


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