Offensive cyber operations is one of five components that will be in a new U.S. Navy Cyber Command cyber strategy being completed for its fifth anniversary.
“You don’t win a knife fight without swinging a knife. We’re spending time making sure we’re ready to execute should those options be considered appropriate by national command authority to do that,” Kevin Cooley, executive director and command information officer for Fleet Cyber Command and the 10th Fleet, said on Tuesday.
Photo: U.S. Navy.
The strategy outlines the model of integrating cyber into the broader warfighter area. The other main components will include transforming the Navy to a warfighting platform, collecting tailored signals intelligence (SIGINT), expanding cyber situational awareness, and establishing the cyber mission forces.
Using the Navy network as a warfighting platform is “a pretty interesting problem,” Cooley said at the C4ISR & Networks Conference.
This effort includes reducing the attack surface through assuring compliance and defending against cyber threats, striking a balance in IT investments, weighing cost savings for defense in depth, and influencing the programming and acquisition process, he said.
The third component, tailored signals intelligence, will particularly involve distributed signals intelligence. Cooley cited an example of using networked SIGINT to use a specialized translator for Africa operations without transporting the translator to Africa.
The fourth component, cyber situational awareness, is linked to command and control and using the network as a warfighting platform. However, the lack of capability despite its relevance makes it a specific goal in the strategy, Cooley said.
Cooley said, “Industry plays a large part in those capabilities that are relevant, whether it’s analytics and visualization necessary for achieving shared awareness or experience and systems and data strategies necessary for effective implementation of awareness across the services and joint systems.”
Establishing the cyber mission forces, the last component of the strategy, involves launching the 40 cyber teams currently under development.
“Those are the folks that are going to go out and do the missions in this warfare domain,” Cooley said.
The cyber strategy is expected to be released early this summer.