Cybersecurity practitioners Michael Papay, Frank Cilluffo and Sharon Cardash urge the Defense Department to establish cybersecurity as a requirement in system design and architecture to counter potential vulnerabilities to U.S. defense platforms and systems.Papay, chief information officer at Northrop Grumman, and Cilluffo and Cardash from the George Washington University – Homeland Security Policy Institute say in a guest post published Tuesday on Nextgov that the Pentagon needs to align cybersecurity, the acquisition process and electronic battlefield components.
They believe such a shift in security focus from computer networks to battlefield systems will help prevent enemy advantages as these adversaries use “remote exploitation” to sabotage the military supply chain and manufacturing.
“The power to meet these cybersecurity challenges lies in the acquisition community, particularly by partnering with industry to build the necessary protections for mission-critical elements,” they say.
According to them, DoD should work on education and training programs to build awareness and skills, sustained leadership to establish a “culture” of cybersecurity and systems engineering that includes security as a requirement.
