Forwarded From: bluesky@rcia.com
http://www.rcrnews.com/CGI-BIN/SM40i.exe?docid=100:5999&%70aramArticleID=8105
September 8, 1998
Pentagon may want 3G spectrum for protection
By Jeffrey Silva
WASHINGTON —About a year after the Clinton administration created a
special panel in 1996 to assess potential threats to telecom networks and
other critical infrastructure, the Pentagon conducted a top secret
exercise—code named ‘‘Eligible Receiver’’—that found national security
vulnerability far greater than what the U.S. government previously had
acknowledged.
In his new book, The Next World War, author James Adams reports senior
U.S. officials were stunned at the degree to which Eligible Receiver
exposed wireless and wireline networks, power grids, banking and financial
operations and other vital support systems to sabotage.
‘‘Eligible Receiver was a real shock to us all,’’ a Pentagon official told
Adams. ‘‘It should have been a wake-up call, but as so few people know the
details, I’m not sure who has heard the alarm and what they’re doing about
it.’’
Adams, a defense journalist who recently resigned as CEO of United Press
International to launch a defense consulting firm, said Eligible Receiver
proved beyond doubt that an ‘electronic Pearl Harbor’ was possible.
‘‘It was so easy to do. That’s the frightening thing,’’ Adams told RCR in
a recent telephone interview.
The rise of information warfare, which Adams said began in earnest with
the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has implications for government spectrum use in
the next century.
Vital communications links, according to Adams’ book, have led some in the
U.S. military to ‘‘believe that future wars will be fought and won by
those who control the electronic spectrum and who can deploy smaller
forces packing bigger punches with fewer punches.’’
Indeed, the book said operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, among
other things, required 7,000 radio frequencies, 1,000 miles of land links,
12 combat communications squadrons and 29 million calls.
Carriers and manufacturers want a huge new swatch of spectrum for
third-generation mobile phones, but the Pentagon’s heavy reliance on
high-tech in the post-Cold War era could make it difficult to get the
agency to surrender any more frequencies to the private sector.
With Eligible Receiver now having leaked out after being kept under wraps
by the joint chiefs of staff, the Pentagon appears anxious to draw
attention to cyber-attack threats ostensibly in hopes of securing more
support from Congress and the private sector.
‘‘Yes, there was an exercise. We need to be increasingly concerned that
all segments of society and all key infrastructure are dependent on
information and information systems and increasingly vulnerable to attacks
on it,’’ said Susan Hansen, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Hansen said the Pentagon knows from being hacked itself that ‘‘our systems
are recognizable targets.’’
The harsh and sobering reality of U.S. vulnerability to cyber attacks came
out loud and clear in the October 1997 report to President Clinton from
Retired Air Force Gen. Robert Marsh, chairman of the Presidential
Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection.
Since the report’s publication and President Clinton’s critical
infrastructure executive order in May, new units have been created in DOD,
the FBI, the Justice Department and the Commerce Department to oversee and
guard against attacks on the national information infrastructure.
John Hamre, deputy Defense secretary, is the Pentagon’s point man on
critical infrastructure protection, while Michael Vatis runs the FBI’s new
National Infrastructure Protection Center at its headquarters here.
Richard Clarke, meanwhile, has been tapped national coordinator for
security, infrastructure protection and counter terrorism.
Until now, little attention has been paid to such threats. Indeed, the
advice the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council—headed by AT&T
Corp. Chairman C. Michael Armstrong—gives to the Federal Communication
Commission is limited to technical fixes and prevention against outages.
The private sector is partnering with federal agencies in the fight
against cyber attacks, but already there are signs that friction over
costs and privacy—the same hot button issues that dominate digital wiretap
and encryption debates—will challenge the mission.
In addition, according to Adams, government infighting has accompanied the
development of critical infrastructure protection policy.
-o-
Subscribe: mail majordomo@sekurity.org with "subscribe isn".
Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
Received on Fri Sep 11 17:28:07 1998