Coronavirus work-at-home puts unprecedented pressure on DOD networks, raising worries about cyber attack

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

24 March 2020 -- “Given the increased telework demand, we’ve seen a tremendous increase on the network. Unprecedented demand just over the last weekend or so,” Essye Miller, said.

She explained that, as a result of the increased demand on the DOD networks, they are asking that streaming services such as Pandora be limited if they are not mission essential. She also noted that access to YouTube will be blocked.

Lisa Hershman, the Pentagon’s chief management officer, said the department is stress-testing telework opportunities. Given that, Miller noted a 240 percent increase in the help-desk requests.

Officials also explained that increased telework provides a larger cyber attack surface for adversaries to exploit, though, officials noted, Secret and Top Secret information is not available in a telework environment.

Related: Cyber attack on DISA results in data breach that may have affected as many as 200,000 computer system users

Related: Military cyber security: threats and solutions

Related: Pentagon to issue cyber security standards to provide trusted computing for military supply chain

John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics