Intro, Importance, and Summary
(U) In 2015, the United States Government suffered the biggest cyber-attack against a federal agency to date. The Office of Personnel Management reported that up to 21.5 million instances of personal data was stolen by hackers. Many more attacks have occurred recently, and cyber-attacks have become a common occurrence with billions of attacks carried out on various federal agencies each year. Pew Research Center recently conducted a study, and found that the people of the United States believe that the second biggest threat to global security is cyber-attacks. Specifically, these threats pose significant risks to the Coast Guard and the National Maritime System (NMS). These operations contain cyber systems crucial …show more content…
Many of these systems are on helicopters, cutters, boats, and operational settings across the country. If attacks are successful, the missions fail, and rebuilding is necessary, costing countless resources, time, and possibly civilian lives. Furthermore, strikes on these systems could lead to the death or injury of members in the Coast Guard or NMS, equipment damage, or economic damage. Therefore, the Coast Guard intelligence requirement of cyber-security and cyber operations is crucial to the Coast Guard’s survival. Only one opening in a cyber system can lead to a failure, making it crucial to secure these systems. The Coast Guard can combat cyber-attacks by consistently monitoring and updating their cyber systems, figuring out which systems will be under attack the most, learning from other organizations successes and failures, and knowing how to react when under attack. Overall, the Coast Guard needs to defend their cyberspace, allowing them to enable their operations across the globe and protect the affairs of other organizations while protecting the valuable …show more content…
The amount of skill combined with the amount of money and resources available to cyber adversaries determines how successful they are. Cyber adversaries use many different techniques. These could include uploading malicious software to a system, instigating a Denial of Service attack, where hackers overwhelm a server with a massive amount of traffic in order to destroy a system, utilizing social engineering and phishing attacks, employing other various attacks involving data manipulation and brute force to open a system. Time, money, people, and skills all limit cyber adversaries against carrying out attacks. The risk involved with this is that a cyber adversary is only as strong the government’s weakest system. If the government has well-built systems that can withstand daily attacks, the enemy cannot perform what they aim to complete. This is why it is important for the government and the Coast Guard to have access to the most skilled people, and utilize the best cyber defense machines and techniques. Furthermore, the diffusion of this technology to the NMS and other businesses is important. The civilian sector needs to be able to protect itself in order to secure economic safety for the United
(U) In 2015, the United States Government suffered the biggest cyber-attack against a federal agency to date. The Office of Personnel Management reported that up to 21.5 million instances of personal data was stolen by hackers. Many more attacks have occurred recently, and cyber-attacks have become a common occurrence with billions of attacks carried out on various federal agencies each year. Pew Research Center recently conducted a study, and found that the people of the United States believe that the second biggest threat to global security is cyber-attacks. Specifically, these threats pose significant risks to the Coast Guard and the National Maritime System (NMS). These operations contain cyber systems crucial …show more content…
Many of these systems are on helicopters, cutters, boats, and operational settings across the country. If attacks are successful, the missions fail, and rebuilding is necessary, costing countless resources, time, and possibly civilian lives. Furthermore, strikes on these systems could lead to the death or injury of members in the Coast Guard or NMS, equipment damage, or economic damage. Therefore, the Coast Guard intelligence requirement of cyber-security and cyber operations is crucial to the Coast Guard’s survival. Only one opening in a cyber system can lead to a failure, making it crucial to secure these systems. The Coast Guard can combat cyber-attacks by consistently monitoring and updating their cyber systems, figuring out which systems will be under attack the most, learning from other organizations successes and failures, and knowing how to react when under attack. Overall, the Coast Guard needs to defend their cyberspace, allowing them to enable their operations across the globe and protect the affairs of other organizations while protecting the valuable …show more content…
The amount of skill combined with the amount of money and resources available to cyber adversaries determines how successful they are. Cyber adversaries use many different techniques. These could include uploading malicious software to a system, instigating a Denial of Service attack, where hackers overwhelm a server with a massive amount of traffic in order to destroy a system, utilizing social engineering and phishing attacks, employing other various attacks involving data manipulation and brute force to open a system. Time, money, people, and skills all limit cyber adversaries against carrying out attacks. The risk involved with this is that a cyber adversary is only as strong the government’s weakest system. If the government has well-built systems that can withstand daily attacks, the enemy cannot perform what they aim to complete. This is why it is important for the government and the Coast Guard to have access to the most skilled people, and utilize the best cyber defense machines and techniques. Furthermore, the diffusion of this technology to the NMS and other businesses is important. The civilian sector needs to be able to protect itself in order to secure economic safety for the United