From Henry Kenyon and Wyatt Kash, AOL Defense:  [Chief of Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency Gen. Keith] Alexander noted the difficulties the Defense Department has in protecting its own networks. The Pentagon currently has some 15,000 network enclaves, each with its own equipment and administrators. Even with an ongoing consolidation efforts, the sheer size of the organization means that there are plenty of chinks in its armor.

"The DoD network is not defensible, per se," he stated soberly. "We are defending it," but the number of separate systems makes it practically impossible to keep every system up to date. . . .

There has been some progress on the government side of things. Alexander noted that there is a focus on several critical areas: people, command and control, defensible architectures and authority. Intelligence organizations like the NSA work hard to attract the best and brightest to man its cyber operations branches. The government is also putting a lot of effort into retaining and training them.

One potential solution is to adopt a virtual cloud model supporting many mobile users.  (graphic: RT)

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