Category Archives: DOD cybersecurity

House defense bill would usher in cybersecurity changes at DOD

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The House of Representatives this week overwhelmingly passed a defense policy bill with several cybersecurity measures aimed at better securing Pentagon networks. The legislation — the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — seeks closer collaboration between the departments of Defense and Homeland Security in defending against hackers, asks for quick notification of data breaches of military personnel, and continues to crack down on foreign-made telecom products that are deemed security threats. The NDAA is an annual ritual that lawmakers use to shape Pentagon policies and budget plans while throwing in some pet projects to boot. The House bill — a $717 billion behemoth — eventually will be merged with the Senate’s version, which that chamber’s Armed Services Committee also approved this week. It’s unclear when the Senate bill will have floor votes. One key provision of the House bill, according to the Rules Committee print, would set up a pilot program for […]

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Army pioneer heads to Army Cyber Command

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Command Sgt. Maj. Sheryl Lyon hopes she’s eased the path for future female military leaders. After almost three years at U.S. Army Europe, Lyon is leaving for an assignment at Army Cyber Command in Virginia. Lyon was the army’s first female senior leader at a service component command. She will be the senior enlisted leader at Army Cyber Command, serving in the role of the command sergeant major. “I hope that I’ve been able to help pave the way, that it’s based on capability for positions instead of gender or ethnicity or anything like that,” Lyon told Stars and Stripes. Lyon, a trained intelligence analyst, believes she can “bring some knowledge and past experience that will help in that realm that will help advance it as well.” Founded in 2010, Army Cyber Command is the cyberwarfare unit tasked with protecting Army computer systems and using hacking tools to support soldiers […]

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Senators question Pentagon over workforce’s use of data-leaking fitness app Strava

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A bipartisan group of senators wants the Defense Department to explain how a popular fitness app apparently used by some U.S. military personnel, intelligence analysts and Pentagon officials led to the disclosure of secret bases and facilities around the world. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis, questioning the department’s policy for employees using wireless networks and devices on military sites after. The app, Strava, inadvertently shared a heat map that recently detailed its users’ activities, prompting a DoD-wide review of personal electronics at its installations. The heat map revealed the locations of several secret U.S. military bases when the data was dumped in November. Patrick Shanahan, deputy secretary of Defense, was wearing a Fitbit watch up until last week, potentially exposing himself to this breach. If Android users using the fitness app don’t enable the “nomap” feature — which disables a Wi-Fi network […]

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