Shaping the Air Force Operational Environment in Cyberspace
Abstract
The Air Force is losing the battle to defend cyberspace and each day the United States faces increasing threats and attacks against its networks aimed at the theft, manipulation, or destruction of information. The loss of information caused by inadequate cyber security has inflicted unacceptable and often incalculable damage to US national and economic security interests. The Air Force has dedicated considerable resources trying to manage and secure information and information systems in cyberspace. Air Force personnel have tried to create a number of secure operational environments in the cyberspace domain, all based on technology developed in the 1950s and 1960s for an open, highly fragmented, system centric, architectural environment. One major problem with this approach is that the Air Force frequently fields systems and applications that are often outdated upon implementation and susceptible to attack in that open environment. Another problem with this approach is that the infrastructure used to create the current environment was, in most cases, commercial off the shelf (COTS) products, designed and built by our adversaries. Instead of this approach, the Air Force could redefine what is meant by an "Air Force Operational Environment" and move to a more cloud centric approach where the priorities are set by the cloud and not by applications or individual needs. The Air Force should develop the doctrine, strategies, applications, and infrastructure necessary to create, defend, and dominate its own "Air Force Cloud."
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 12, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA540173
Entities
People
- John C. Rogers
Organizations
- Air War College