Pentagon to release new cyber security strategy soon

The US Defense Department will release a new cyber strategy next week to "guide the way forward for the next several years", according to a senior Pentagon official.

Eric Rosenbach, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security, on Tuesday outlined the Pentagon's plan to improve the US cyber security, Xinhua reported.

Rosenbach said defending Pentagon's networks was the most important cyber mission, because it was "very network-reliant and network-centric" as it had the largest enterprise network in the world, and all military operations depended on that network.

Furthermore, the Defense Department needed to protect the country against significant cyber attacks, which account for about two percent of all attacks, Rosenbach added.

Finally, the Defense Department aimed to provide full-spectrum cyber options to the president, or the defense secretary in cases they are advantageous to the national interest.

In light of the evolving nature of the threat of cyber attacks, the Pentagon was committed to a "comprehensive, whole-of-government cyber strategy", Rosenbach said.

He said the Pentagon would play three specific roles within the government to provide deterrence against cyber attacks.

First, it needed to develop capabilities to deny a potential attack from achieving its desired effect.

It must also increase the cost of executing a cyber attack and must be able to provide the president with options to respond to cyber attacks through cyber and other means, including foreign policy tools and military options.

Finally, it would ensure resilience, so that the cyber infrastructure could bounce back from an attack.

In order to achieve its goals, the Pentagon made a "conscious decision" to invest in capabilities and build a cyber mission force comprising 133 teams, Rosenbach said.

One of the top priorities for US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is to build a cadre of cyber experts in the defence department and ensuring that it has new "tunnels" for recruiting talents.

The Pentagon is trying to build strong partnerships with the private sector and other government agencies, allies and partners to bolster its cyber capabilities.

In November last year, one of Hollywood's largest film studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment, was cyber-attacked, wherein hackers stole extensive amounts of employee data, including social security numbers and medical records of over 3,000 employees.

In addition, the cyber pirates stole five new films from Sony and leaked them on the Internet ahead of their scheduled release.