NSA Renews Focus On Securing Military Weapons Systems Against ‘Capable’ Rivals
District of Columbia | October 8, 2021
The head of the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate said that one of his agency’s top priorities has become protecting US weapons systems from cyber threats, representing a shift in focus brought about by the rise of an increasingly multipolar world with highly capable cyber adversaries. NSA’s Rob Joyce told the annual Billington Cybersecurity Summit on Wednesday that “near-peer adversaries have the capabilities to exploit us when we do things incorrectly,” referring to China and Russia. Joyce also said Iran and North Korea remain a concern as increasingly capable cyber adversaries. “In terms of weapons systems, we have computers on wings, at sea, and on land. We don’t think of [weapons systems] that way, but none of them work without computers,” Joyce observed…. (Excerpts from Breaking Defense)