DSD Bill Lynn addresses a large group at CSIS on “Protecting the Domain: Cybersecurity as a Defense Priority”. The audience had such Gov’t liminaries as Melissa Hathaway of the NSC, Hans Binnendijk of the NDU, and Philip Reitinger of DHS, as well as Paul Kurtz of Good Harbor Consulting, a leading candidate for the Cyber Coordinator post. There were also a heavy contingent of press.
The group was disappointed by the lack of any “new” news from the DSD. He emphasized the importance of Cyber, and that DoD did not want to militarize the internet, but only wanted to protect the “.mil” domain. All this is old news. The only thing approximatinf anything new was his comment that “now DoD considers Cyber a defense domain in the same way it looks at the land, air, and maritime domains. Unfortunately for the audience, this was actually done in the last administration.
Several press members tried to get Lynn to comment on offensive capabilities, but he simply told them he was not going to bite. Overall, it was good to see the #2 man in the Pentagon state how important Cyber is to the DoD, but everyone expecting a roll out of DoD’s actions to support the President’s new cyber plans were disappointed.
