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List:       isn
Subject:    [ISN] Military pushes for wireless security
From:       InfoSec News <isn () c4i ! org>
Date:       2002-11-21 15:18:22
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Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk@c4i.org>

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/1118/web-wire-11-20-02.asp

By Dan Caterinicchia 
Nov. 20, 2002

Military leaders agree that wireless communication is the wave of the
future, but they also agree that it needs far greater security
features to become deployable and reliable on the battlefield.

Air Force Maj. Gen. John Bradley, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic
Command's joint task force for computer network operations, said the
Defense Department not only needs more secure wireless tools, it also
needs them to be smaller with solid encryption and authentication
features.

The joint task force, created about 18 months ago, is responsible for
defending DOD networks from attack, according to Bradley, who was
speaking during a Nov. 19 panel at the AFCEA International's TechNet
Asia-Pacific International 2002 Conference and Exposition in Honolulu.

There's still a long way to go in securing wireless products, said
Brig. Gen. John Thomas, Marine Corps chief information officer. But he
was glad to see that the National Security Agency had approved the use
of some commercial products to protect classified communications up to
the top-secret level using the Type 1 encryption algorithm available
to authorized personnel.

Thomas said the Marines are using Enhanced Position Location Reporting
System radios to communicate securely on the battlefield while they
await the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), which uses
software-centric radios that can be programmed to patch users into
various radio frequencies.

For now, all of the military services must rely on their own solutions
until JTRS will be ready to link them at end of decade, Thomas said.  
To help address that problem, the services need "top-down" leadership
from the Pentagon, he said.

Rear Adm. Charles Munns, director of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet,
said that the Navy has begun to address the problem by making the
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (Spawar) the system architect
for the service's command, control, communications, computers and
intelligence -- including wireless. Now, the Naval Air Systems Command
and Naval Sea Systems Command go to Spawar for governance, he said.
 

 
*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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*==============================================================*



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