By Marina Malenic
U.S. Transportation Command is subject to more cyber attacks than any other combatant command, according to its commander.
“We are the most attacked of all the COCOMs,” TRANSCOM chief Air Force Gen. Duncan McNabb told an audience in Washington this week.
McNabb said this vulnerability is due largely to the fact that his command relies on unclassified and commercial networks to conduct its missions. In 2010 alone, according to the general, there were 33,326 “computer network events” targeting TRANSCOM.
“About 90 percent of TRANSCOM command-and-control operations are done on unclassified systems,” said McNabb. “We work that every day.”
He was speaking at a Feb. 7 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.
Established in 1987 and located at Scott AFB, Ill., TRANSCOM is the Pentagon’s distribution coordinator and transports supplies and people throughout the world.
Further, McNabb said that improvised explosive devices are still a “huge” problem for supply convoys in Afghanistan, despite the introduction of many new technologies aimed at defeating the deadly roadside bombs. According to McNabb, ground convoys in Afghanistan were attacked by IEDs 1,100 times in 2010. Aerial deliveries skirt the IED threat but are 10 times more expensive than shipping items on the ground–it costs about $3 per pound to ship by air, compared to 30 cents for ground transport, McNabb said.
And while TRANSCOM conducts 90 percent of its worldwide deliveries by surface and only 10 percent by airlift, in Afghanistan 30 percent of all cargo is delivered by air due to the dangers and harsh conditions, McNabb said.
The general also said he looks forward to the deployment of a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers. Because the legacy KC-135 cannot receive fuel in flight, it cannot stay on station for very long. A modern tanker with that capability could yield up to 25 percent greater efficiency, said McNabb.
“When we’re talking about five million pounds of fuel a day,” he said, “25 percent is not bad.”