US Cyber Command is extending its protective protocols beyond the “dot mil” domains to the networks of some defense companies, according to US Strategic Command’s commander, Gen. Robert Kehler. A pilot program is under way to extend CYBERCOM protection to “parts of the industrial base,” Kehler told defense reporters Tuesday in Washington, D.C. “We are seeing some good success” with the effort and it will be “extended for a period of time,” he said. CYBERCOM is a sub-unified command aligned under STRATCOM.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…