Keith B. Alexander, Cyber Command

The U.S. military lacks educated cyber warriors and the legal authorities it needs to respond to a cyber attack on the nation or its allies, and a crisis would quickly deplete the force the U.S. does have, the chief of Cyber Command said yesterday.

Gen. Keith Alexander, who is dual hatted in his roles as chief of the U.S. Cyber Command as well as the National Security Agency, told Congress he would give the military a grade of “C” in its capability to safeguard Pentagon networks, although he acknowledged there has been progress, according to The Associated Press,

“We are finding that we do not have the capacity to do everything we need to accomplish,” he said, according to AP. “To put it bluntly, we are very thin, and a crisis would quickly stress our cyber forces.”

The cyber chief said cyberspace should not be allowed to be “a sanctuary where real and potential adversaries can marshal forces and capabilities to use against us and our allies.”

However, as of now, Alexander said, the military does not have the cyber force it needs to defend its networks or to ensure its ability to plan and operate in cyberspace.

Pointing to the recent uprisings in the Middle East and governments blocking Internet access to disrupt protests, the cyber commander also spoke about how other nations have cyber weapons that can devastate infrastructure as powerfully as kinetic warfare.

The U.S. military is prepared to launch cyber attacks to protect critical infrastructure, Alexander said, or respond to an assault on the homeland or U.S. allies. But, he said, the administration and Congress need to better define what the military can do under certain circumstances, including how and when it can take steps to protect civilian networks.

Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Photo: army.mil

A top military officer warned Wednesday of the “substantial” and complex threat to the United States of cyber attack, and the potential for withering impact, according to CNN.

“We’ve got to come to a place where those threats are diminished, if not eliminated,” Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said at a news conference in Washington, D.C. “I would never go in, certainly in any area of warfare, into details on threats except to say they are substantial. We are focused on them.”

Mullen said cyberspace, like outer space, is a lawless domain, without rules and “no boundaries, it happens with the speed of light,” CNN reported.

The U.S. Cyber Command did not become operational until late last year. The first chief of that command, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, was confirmed in May. The general has warned that Department of Defense computers are attacked 250,000 a day. And Google has reported falling prey to cyber attacks originating in China, something a cable released by WikiLeaks confirmed.

However, Mullen said China is not the only potential enemy, although a threat from there is “significant.”

“There are other threats out there that we see routinely. . . it is an enormously complex and critical area that all of us need to understand a lot better and do a lot more about,” he said.

Keith B. Alexander

The Senate has confirmed Army Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, to lead the new U.S. Cyber Command.

“We are pleased that the Senate has moved forward with his confirmation,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. “General Alexander brings to the job the leadership to stand up this command, and the skills and expertise that will be critical to the new command in dealing with security challenges in the cyber domain.”

The new command was created by Department of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in June in response to the growing threats against the department’s computer networks, the corresponding threat to national security, and the need for unity of command to address the problem.

During his mid-April confirmation hearing, Alexander told the Senate his main focus at Cyber Command will be to build capacity and capability to secure the networks and educating the public on the command’s intent.

“This command is not about an effort to militarize cyberspace,” he said. “Rather, it’s about safeguarding our military assets.”

Cyber Command is responsible for “dot-mil” security, Alexander said, and for giving early warning of cyber threats to the nation and providing people and capabilities to support any homeland threat.