Guarding Information, Not Just Networks

Guarding Information, Not Just Networks: To be truly effective in the dynamic flux of the cyber battlefield, the Air Force must shift from defending networks, to guarding the information they carry instead, said Maj. Gen. Earl Matthews, air staff cyberspace operations director. “We built this proverbial Maginot line. Now we have to find ways to defend behind the line and fight through the attacks, since our adversaries have found ways to be over, under, around, and through our defenses,” said Matthews. “We still need to defend the network, but we must also protect the reason for the network—the data and information that resides and flows through the network,” he emphasized, speaking at AFA’s Air & Space Conference in National Harbor, Md., on Tuesday. The network is a tool, but the truly valuable target is the information passing through it, Matthews reemphasized. Without secure information, modern command and control, intelligence, and communication are of much less value on the battlefield.