Hundreds of people heard the panel discuss changes in the structure of Defense Information Systems Agency. (Daniel Hersh/MNS)
ARLINGTON, Va. – On the same day that the Islamic State hacked a Defense Department Twitter account, DoD officials said Monday the Pentagon is going to the cloud.
A panel held by the announced that the Department of Defense was beginning the process of moving its data to the cloud.
The panel was made up of six Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) officials and was headlined by Lt. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, Jr outlined the Defense Information Systems Agency transformation by citing his “Five C’s:” Cyber, cloud, collaboration, command and control.
But much of the discussion at the event, sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, focused on the first two – cyber and cloud.
ISIS sympathizers Monday hacked into both the Twitter and YouTube accounts of Central Command, but the sites have since been restored. Also this week, President Barack Obama is pushing for increased cybersecurity cooperation between the government and private sector and more consumer protections online.
At the panel discussion, DISA Chief Information Assurance Executive Mark Orndorff said that the Department of Defense is working with commercial cloud providers to provide a still-secure, but mobile method of transporting information. He added that classified documents would remain in a physically secure environment.
“It’s been something that would add value from an efficiency, effectiveness, and opportunity perspective for a while now,” Orndorff said after the discussion. “We wanted to get the security balance right.”
DISA, a DoD combat support agency composed of civilian employees, active duty military personnel and defense contractors, is working with commercial cloud providers to provide cybersecurity while maintaining availability.
“As you integrate that into your standard framework, there’s potential for more vulnerabilities,” Skinner said. “So, we have to understand what that potential is and make sure we have our defenses tuned.”
Orndorff said that cost reduction and efficiency are among the biggest benefits.
But, his main point was that DISA and the Department of Defense must be able to operate in cyberspace. And to do so securely, they determined that the strength of the commercial security and encryption technologies was enough to safely transition to the cloud.
Hawkins estimated that DoD would be well on its way toward moving all data to the cloud by the end of the year.
