WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Northrop Grumman announced it has opened a new cybersecurity operations center that will detect and respond to potential cyber threats to its own corporate safety and act on behalf of clients worldwide.
Company officials said the center, in suburban Maryland, would operate around the clock and provide security monitoring for more than 105,000 clients, including U.S. government agencies, and 10,000 servers worldwide.
"Enemies attack networks 24/7 -- and can take over powerfully defended systems," the company said, adding its services encompassed domains for the military, civilian government and private industry.
Tim McKnight, vice president and chief information security officer in the company's information systems sector, said the center would benefit from Grumman Northrop's experience and existing capacity, "one of private industry's largest and most sophisticated digital infrastructures."
He said the growing sophistication of cyber threats prompted the company to take "assertive and holistic measures" to defend its network and information assets. "Northrop Grumman has integrated the latest cybersecurity technologies to meet this threat head-on," he said.
The company has more than a decade of expertise in information security for .mil and .gov customers on the Web, he said. "This new center creates a game-changing capability that will not only better protect our networks, but will keep pace with the ever-changing nature of the threat. Equally important, what we learn can be directly applied to our cyber customers."
The 6,300-square-foot facility's operations center is used by analysts to monitor and process more than 1.5 billion cyber events a day. Response to suspected security threats involves forensic computer examination to assess their source and seriousness. Experts respond to advanced threats by designing and developing appropriate cyber tools to deal with them.
The Obama administration has made cybersecurity a priority issue. In July Congress asked key federal agencies for security updates after a series of cyberattacks. Targeted institutions included the National Railroad Passenger Corp., or AMTRAK, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Trade Commission, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Maritime Commission, congressional sources said.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., co-author of a cybersecurity bill introduced in the Senate, wants the Federal Communications Commission included in the list of agencies frequently monitored against cyberattacks. Last year the Obama administration ordered a review of the FCC to raise its profile and effectiveness.
In an open letter to Obama published in a March 2009 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, Northrop Grumman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ronald Sugar warned of the threat of cyberattacks and outlined actions government and industry needed to meet the challenge.
"Our nation has historically enjoyed the geographic protection of broad oceans. But today, geography has only limited value as we assess our national vulnerabilities. The military notion of a 'front' -- a defined line of battle safely distant from our homes, schools and places of business -- is becoming as antiquated as the buggy whip," Sugar said.
"Because we are so completely dependent on information technology for our security, prosperity and way of life, and because it is so vulnerable to attack, the 'front' is now everywhere. The U.S. Homeland Security Dept. reported a 152 percent increase in cyberattacks against federal agencies in 2007 from the previous year," Sugar said.
"Our economy is also under siege. According to a recent report on cybersecurity by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, our intelligence community claims that U.S. companies have lost billions of dollars in intellectual property to cyberattacks."
He called for "focused congressional oversight and clear federal agency accountability. To be successful, we need government to provide an integrated, holistic set of regulations, measurable success criteria and financial incentives. We in industry should help define those criteria, and provide the advanced technology to reach the goal. Neither government nor industry can solve this problem alone. Together we need to enable and improve relationships with our international counterparts to achieve our common purpose," said Sugar.
