The Navy is beginning to focus on cybersecurity information sharing with the private sector but needs to increase it, Vice Adm. Jan Tighe, head of U.S. Navy Cyber Command, said last week.
Tighe reiterated that cybersecurity is a team sport and the Navy shares information and methods with the other services.
However, the Navy is beginning to focus on information sharing with the private sector.
While focused on the integrity of its own network, “one of our great problems also revolves around the loss of data that is of value to the Navy inside of our defense industrial base,” Tighe said at Dec. 2 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“On a routine basis we are losing great intellectual property and important data to the Navy out of the commercial sector of the defense industrial base,” she noted.
The Navy is working with law enforcement, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and U.S. Cyber Command to share information to get beyond the decade-old reactive mode of responding to cyber intrusions, but, “we need to get the rest of the defense industrial base to a place where we’re more proactive,” Tighe said.
Real-time information sharing is important to the Navy because it can help give the defense industrial partners an opportunity to act on intrusions before information is lost. “And so getting to better sharing and real-time sharing is really important to us,” she said.
Tighe also highlighted how the Navy is transitioning to treating information dominance overall, including cyberspace, as a warfighting domain. “Whether we like it or not, cyberspace is an established, operational warfighting domain. And just like the maritime and air and space domains, this domain has to be defended,” Tighe said.
This involves creating a type commander to focus on generating readiness and flow that readiness to operational commanders. This process mirrors how the Navy operates in other warfighting areas, such as surface or air warfare.