Incursions on the military's networks were up 55% last year, says Lieutenant General Charles E. Croom, head of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. Private targets like Booz Allen are just as vulnerable and pose just as much potential security risk. 'They have our information on their networks. They're building our weapon systems. You wouldn't want that in enemy hands,' Croom says. Cyber attackers 'are not denying, disrupting, or destroying operations--yet. But that doesn't mean they don't have the capability.'"
Those are 3 of the 5 Ds in a new military docrine called D5E, for Destruction, Degradation, Denial, Disruption, Deceit and Exploitation (see JOINT POLICY FOR MILITARY DECEPTION: CJCSI 3211.01C). It's quietly replacing the 30-year old C4I as the new senior doctrine for an age of Information Warfare. The idea is, you don't win by coordinating your own forces better than your opponent does, you win by making your opponent less able or willing to fight. It's an interesting concept but limits must be put on its use in a free society or you'll end up with strategic deception directed at a domestic audience, ie the government lying to its own people in order to achieve its goals.