Everyone Is a Participant in Information Operations
While information operations has been a priority to at least a small percentage of the global security community, it is becoming a mainstream discipline as part of the cyberwarfare initiatives now gaining precedence throughout government and industry. Recent experiences in
We all know how dependent we have become on computers and digital systems and services in everything that we do. Cyberwarfare capitalizes on that dependency—ours and the enemy’s. All critical infrastructure is vulnerable—ours and the enemy’s. This extends to power generation, pipelines, financial systems, information systems and other services controlled digitally. Information operations, or IO, pertains to that subset of cyberwarfare that involves the generation, transmission, storage and use of information.
In
In the
Meanwhile, countries everywhere are developing similar capabilities to preserve their infrastructures and warfighting potential. We are working with our international partners to refine IO and cyberwarfare for coalition operations. Nowhere is this more critical than in NATO because of current operations in
Areas of industry mobilization include IO and cyberwarfare in general. This is an extremely complex problem, both in the offense and the defense, and it is made more difficult by the dynamic nature of the technology and the threat. New technologies and methods are emerging daily, making defense of networks and other critical infrastructure increasingly difficult and making positive identification and location of sources extremely challenging. Industry around the world is actively engaged in addressing these issues and working closely with government. AFCEA is part of this process, helping promote dialogue among government, industry and academia on current and future requirements, as well as approaches to effective partnership.
This month, the fourth in our series of Solutions events will feature cyberwarfare. Our government co-sponsor is the Joint Staff, J-3, J-5 and J-6. We will have representatives from STRATCOM, DISA, the military services, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other civil agencies. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff will be a speaker. We will explore the emerging policy and doctrine, the current state of effort and industry requirements in this critical discipline. This is an important dialogue, and it represents an opportunity not to be missed. The event will be held at the
At the request of STRATCOM, we will follow up with a cyberwarfare event in
If you are not already engaged in cyberwarfare and IO, you need to become involved. There is no more critical endeavor in the global security community today. We need everyone’s attention to this problem.