Business publication Wall Street Journal reported today that the U.S. federal government is working on the defense program, known as the Perfect Citizen. The goal of the program is to create a means of detecting cyber attacks on private companies and government agencies that control critical infrastructure, such as electricity, nuclear energy, chemical and biological industry and m n
Oversees the project U.S. National Security Agency. Now under the control of the NSA is already the lion#39;s share of government and part of the U.S. military networks. The new project is expected to create interfaces for partial unification of government and corporate networks and all the networks to put sensors that will serve as early warning systems attacks. The sensors will be continuously monitoring the network and listen to them on the subject of atypical activity. Through such interaction points, it will be possible to avoid the need to monitor all networks at once, spending enormous resources.
Sources familiar with the progress of the program, said that recently the American defense contractor Raytheon Corp won a government tender closed at $ 100 million. Now this company is to design a monitoring system to protect against hacker attacks. Implement the system will most likely other contractors.
Official comment until representatives of the NSA and Raytheon refuse.
However, WSJ notes that the program in its current form is flawed and very American business is not eager to participate in it, thinking that Perfect Citizen - this is another attempt to invade Uncle Sam in the privacy of companies and citizens. There are, however, and the company, called the program an important and say they are ready to cooperate. Sources in the WSJ Raytheon say the system is designed so that the government simply wants to ensure the safety of critical infrastructure and to get into the private affairs of companies it did not intend.
Independent military experts in Washington say that the need for the program has long been obvious, and the probability of invasion of privacy comparable to the probability of invasion of privacy by the CCTV cameras that have long since set on the city streets. This (program) is a logical continuation of the work of federal agencies, the work done in the past for the protection of critical infrastructure - said in Washington.
An unnamed military official in a private conversation with the WSJ says that the challenge posed by the system is to ensure the purity of networks of Russian and Chinese hackers. He also noted that the White House has long been talking about the revitalization of intelligence activities in both countries. In the U.S., saying that another purpose of the system is to centralize the monitoring data on a variety of networks. The U.S. now has tens of thousands of military and federal networks and most of them with each other is not related.
If it were possible to create a centralized pattern of attacks, it would make the fight against cyber attacks many times more effective - the official said. Our goal - to close the huge and bright hole in the state system of cybersecurity.
In this case, an unnamed military official said that while the system is still far from complete, and even in the States, the federal government does not yet have a common vision and understanding of the system.
In the first phase Perfect Citizen will at least understand what objects are considered critically important, and what - no. So, in the NSA said that given the development of modern computer technology critical objects can be called almost any little bit connected with access to the office network. It is obvious that the country be called critical unrealistic, and provide 100% of cooperation will not be easy.
Earlier, the U.S. government already had experience of trying to co-operation with the private sector in the field of data protection. All these attempts failed. So, a few years ago, the NSA tried to oblige the company to conduct a rigorous audit process of their IT systems, but this attempt in the bowels of hell with bureaucratic offices.
Now, the work comes in the framework of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which was launched under President Bush and continued under Obama. Military observers say the government military and paramilitary programs in the United States has always been funded well, but so far none of the public IT initiatives Washington#39;s success has not ended.
However, to judge the current program is too early, as it is as yet in its infancy.
