Event Coverage

The National Network of Fusion Centers, developed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, are a vital part of the nation’s homeland security efforts, according to experts on the Intelligence and Information Sharing Panel at AFCEA’s Homeland Security Conference in Washington, D.C.

The fusion centers serve as the primary focal point for the receipt, gathering and sharing of threat-related information among federal, state, local, tribal and territorial partners. Although largely funded through federal homeland security grants, the centers are owned and operated by local entities.

Panelists described an environment where the need for fusion centers was identified and building began with little guidance. “We have seen tremendous progress made,” said Christian Beckner, former staff member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “Now, we have a broad national network playing a critical role in making the country safer.”

Scott McAllister, deputy undersecretary of intelligence and analysis for State and Local Program Office, Department of Homeland Security, pointed out that prior to the 9/11 attacks, local had no role in combating terrorism. Now, however, several thousand security clearances are issued at the local level.

Beckner explained that the fusion centers sometimes pass information up the chain to federal agencies, so information is being shared in both directions. Additionally, local and state experts can analyze and process information from a different point of view than federal employees, helping to fill intelligence gaps.

Security concerns have largely driven advances in biometric technologies, but that likely will not be the case in the coming years. Commercial needs will overtake government security needs in determining the direction of biometrics, according to Troy Potter, vice president, Identity and Biometrics Solutions, Unisys Federal Systems, at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference on Wednesday.

“We’re looking at this change from a security focus to a convenience, automation and cost-savings focus. That’s driving the market today. Commercial organizations will drive the market for the next 10 years,” Potter stated.

He cited the example of a friend who has to provide a fingerprint scan when dropping off and picking up her child from the day care center. Potter said that while it may seem to be an effort to improve security, it actually is more motivated by cost savings and having a detailed record of exactly when children are picked up and dropped off. He also cited the example of social media sites using facial recognition.

Some systems, he pointed out, now require a 16-digit password and a large percentage of help desk calls are for password resets, making biometrics an attractive alternative. “The problem is, who is going to manage all of this,” he asked. “Do we trust the day care more than we trust the government?”

The FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) system will improve law enforcement’s capabilities as much as DNA analysis, according to Dave Cuthbertson, assistant director, Criminal Justice information Services Division, FBI.

The NGI advances the FBI’s biometric identification services, providing an incremental replacement of the current system while introducing new functionality. The NGI improvements and new capabilities are being introduced across a multiyear timeframe within a phased approach.

Increment three, which will be deployed in April, will improve accuracy in part by adding palm prints. About one-third of prints recovered from a crime scene are from the palm rather than the fingers, Cuthbertson reports, while serving on the Biometrics/Identity Management panel at AFCEA’s Homeland Security Conference in Washington, D.C. “NGI will be to crime solving almost like DNA processing,” he stated.

The agency already has implemented the first two increments, which increased accuracy from 92 percent to 99.6 percent. Additionally, increment two allows officers in the field to use mobile devices to send back biometric data to be checked against information in the repository.

The fourth and final increment will add more than 13 million mug shots, which will be matched against fingerprints. Cuthbertson said the facial system likely will not provide law enforcement with one definite match but will instead provide a list of possible matches, which law enforcement officials will then have to analyze and investigate further.

Eleven states currently participate in the system, and 13 are working toward participation.

Gen. Michael Hayden, USAF (Ret.), former director of the CIA, indicated an astounding extent of Chinese cyber espionage and said he believes the Iranians are attacking U.S. banks with unsophisticated but pervasive cyber attacks.

Regarding the Chinese, Gen. Hayden said he believes the government solution to cyber espionage should be economic rather than cyber. “We have cyber espionage coming at us, and they’re bleeding us white. The reason the Chinese are doing this is economic. I think the government response should be economic. We can punish China in the economic sphere,” Gen. Hayden told the audience at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

He added that some believe we cannot punish China economically because the Chinese own too much U.S. debt. Gen. Hayden indicated he disagrees.

The general also said the U.S. engages in cyber thievery as well, but he indicated that it is more for security reasons than economic reasons. “We steal other people’s stuff, too. And we’re better at it. We’re number one. But we self-limit—we and a small number of other countries around the world, all of whom speak English,” Gen. Hayden said.

Regarding the Iranians, Gen. Hayden said the number of attacks on the U.S. banking industry has ballooned. “My sense is that we’ve seen a real surge in Iranian cyber attacks. The Iranians have committed distributed denial of service attacks against American banks. I’ve talked to folks in the game here, and they’ve reported to me there’s nothing sophisticated about the attacks, but they say they’ve never seen them on this scale,” Gen. Hayden revealed.

Senior leaders in both industry and government have learned their lessons from major storms, such as Katrina and Sandy, and are working together to improve the nation’s ability to bounce back from natural disasters.

As a member of the Critical Infrastructure Protection panel at AFCEA’s Homeland Security conference in Washington, D.C., William Bryan, deputy assistant secretary for infrastructure security and energy restoration, reported that in the aftermath of Sandy, a major storm that wreaked havoc in the Northeast, industry and government senior leaders worked closely to solve problems.

He added, however, that after the 9/11 attacks, “A lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy was spent on physical protection—gates, guards and guns, bio-readers at facility entrances and crash barriers and on and on and on. None of that worked during Katrina. The money invested by industry to protect their facilities did nothing to protect against the storm. So, the nation started looking at the concept of resilience,” he said. He added that the recently signed presidential directive addresses resilience.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a request for information on Tuesday, February 26, for the cybersecurity framework demanded by the recent White House executive order.

Speaking on the cybersecurity panel at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Jeff Voas, a NIST computer scientist, said he received his first briefing on the executive order about a week ago and NIST already has begun putting together working groups. The request for information process should be concluded in about 45 days. “We’re only a week or two into this,” Voas said.

The panel included Darren Ash, deputy executive director for corporate management and chief information officer for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the civilian use of nuclear power. Ash said that most nuclear power plants in this country were built decades ago in an analog environment, whereas more recent applications to build nuclear facilities are grounded in a digital environment.

“We know that cyber is important. What we expected and required of these licensees was to establish their plans on how to address cyber,” Ash said. “What’s important is what we do with it.” Recent nuclear license requirements have been accepted, he reported, and just this fiscal year, the commission has begun to inspect the cybersecurity capabilities to ensure they are meeting the requirements.

Richard Puckett, chief security architect for GE, argued that the term “cyber” is too vague, meaning different things to different sectors. To private sector clients, for example, cyber refers to protection of credit card numbers and other personal information, whereas government and military customers are more concerned with the cyber activities of other nation states and the protection of critical infrastructure.

The hotel industry has seen a greater increase in terrorist attacks than any other industry in recent years, according to Alan Orlob, vice president of global safety and security for Marriott International. Orlob offered a first-hand account of the attacks on two hotels in Jarkarta, Indonesia, in 2009.

Orlob, the luncheon keynote speaker at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference in Washington, D.C., was staying at a Ritz Carlton hotel, which is owned by Marriott, at the time of the attack.

He said that as he stepped out of the shower, he heard at an explosion at the hotel across the street. “I looked out my window, and I could see the front of the JW Marriott, and I saw smoke coming out of the back and people running,” he said. Moments later, another explosion occurred at the Ritz Carlton.

“I followed the broken glass and the destruction into the restaurant. I don’t know how many of you have been involved in improvised explosive device attacks, but it tears clothes off people and separates extremities. That’s what I was seeing that morning,” he said. “I remember feeling that sense of anger that morning.”

Orlob said he studies the tactics, techniques and procedures used by terrorists, and he offered lessons learned, including training first responders to decide which victims should be treated first, only evacuating a building if the evacuation area has been cleared first and ensuring evacuation plans are current.