Information technology supports and enables many facets of military operations:

•  Logistical support
•  Global command, control, and communications
•  Real-time provision of intelligence
•  Remote operations
•  Network-centric warfare

According to William J. Lynn III, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, every one of these functions depends heavily on the military’s global communications backbone. In the United States, this consists of 15,000 networks and seven million computing devices across hundreds of installations in dozens of countries. More than 90,000 people worldwide work to maintain the defense network. Information technology in the military has evolved into a national strategic asset in its own right.

Since they provide a highly critical service, military networks are under frequent and sophisticated attack. Every day, U.S. military and civilian networks are probed thousands of times and scanned million of times. Adversaries have tried to compromise or steal thousands of files from U.S. networks as well as those of U.S. allies and industry partners, including weapons blueprints, operational plans, and surveillance data.

Government security expert Richard A. Clarke defined cyber war as "actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption." The Economist describes cyber warfare as "the fifth domain of warfare." The Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare.

Government security expert Richard A. Clarke defined cyber war as "actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes of causing damage or disruption." The Economist describes cyber warfare as "the fifth domain of warfare." The Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare.

Regardless of the definition or the source, cyber warfare is permanently changing how governments need to manage security risks and vulnerabilities. 

The State of the Industry 

The networks of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) alone encountered more than 60,000 probes in 2010. While the actual volume of probes in 2010 was lower than in 2009, the severity of the attacks is increasing—and the potential systemic impact is alarming. In fact, many militaries across the globe are developing offensive capabilities in cyber space.

•  According to a 2010 cyber intelligence survey by Narus, Inc., 93% of the security professionals queried believe cyber attacks are increasing; 88% think the government is not equipped to protect itself
•  Rapid technological advances, evolving usage patterns, and skyrocketing adoption of new communications platforms and architectures are opening new entry points into critical networks and infrastructure
•  Physical threats to nations are now planned and executed in the cyber world 

The Challenge

Cyber attacks on military networks have grown rapidly over the past ten years, in some cases surpassing physical attacks. Consequently, military defense must be highly dynamic, real-time, and constantly evolve and adapt. Milliseconds can make a difference, so the military must respond to attacks as they happen or even before they arrive. Cyber defense mechanisms must be able to find intruders as soon as they enter the military network, if not prevent their entry altogether.

The DoD protects all defense networks and supports military and counter terrorism missions with operations in cyberspace. Today, all governments bear additional responsibilities and challenges:

•  High-level management of cyberspace is now critical to national security, not simply a nice-to-have
•  A real-time, continuous awareness of the infrastructure is needed to understand and mitigate the new risks
•  Sophisticated criminals, state-sponsored espionage, and persistent, patient attacks can slip past firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other traditional defense mechanisms
•  Internal threats (e.g. exfiltration, rogue servers, and applications) are as real and potentially damaging as external threats

The Solution

You can’t manage and protect what you can’t see! Narus has established itself as the leader in the dynamic network traffic intelligence space with its flagship product NarusInsight™.

Government organizations and government contractors can effectively monitor private and public networks to protect the services that ride on those networks.

NarusInsight includes these solutions:

•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Cyber Protection
•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Intercept
•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Traffic Management

Benefits

NarusInsight provides complete situational awareness and continuous monitoring in real time, enabling operators with a 24/7, total view of all traffic throughout the network. NarusInsight complements existing signature-based approaches. This combination empowers CNI entities with the ability to take quick, decisive action to neutralize current or imminent threats.

•  The Solution for Cyber Protection uses dynamic network monitoring and patented analytics to run a deep scan of the “digital DNA” (i.e. the behavior) of the network to detect deviations and anomalous traffic patterns
•  The Solution for Intercept can help CNI entities precisely target suspicious and criminal activity, and prevent exfiltration of intellectual property
•  The Solution for Traffic Management provides a complete view of the total IP traffic environment and enables the CNI entity to monitor, capture, analyze, and correlate traffic in real time; this not only enables the organization to  
   comply with regulatory requirements, but also minimizes misuse of network resources and ensures information assurance, network optimization and a high quality of service for its customers

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