So with cybercrime on the rise, and miltary-grade cyberattacks all the rage, it's clearly time to work on our national cyberdefense posture. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified about national defense in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee the other day (01/27/09)...a transcript is here.

Secretary Gates had this to say about cyberdefense:

With cheap technology and minimal investment, current and potential adversaries operating in cyberspace can inflict serious damage to DoD’s vast information grid – a system that encompasses more than 15,000 local, regional, and wide-area networks, and approximately 7 million IT devices. DoD systems are constantly scanned and probed by outside entities, but we have developed a robust network defense strategy. We will continue to defend our systems against network attacks, intrusions, and other incidents.

It is noteworthy that Russia’s relatively crude ground offensive into Georgia was preceded by a sophisticated cyber attack. The massive cyber attack suffered by Estonia in 2007, which I discussed with our partners during a recent visit there, illustrates how quickly malicious hackers can bring even a technologically-sophisticated government to a standstill. To learn from this experience and share technological know-how, the U.S. government is co-sponsoring the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence.

FYI the "NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence" is based in Talin, Estonia...some more information is here. It seems clear that cyberspace is the battle front of the future, and the notion of subcontracting cyberwarfare out to private companies (see the BBC article referenced above) certainly puts an interesting twist on the matter. It will be interesting to see how this subject evolves.