Over the past ten years, the Department of Defense has dramatically shifted from a DoD-unique, government-owned infrastructure to commercial infrastructures.

These infrastructures are vulnerable to attacks over which the government has no control. America’s infrastructures must be protected.

That’s why, based on the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection—a Presidential directive was issued. The directive set goals to:

Increase security of government systems by the Year 2000 and require that each federal department reduce its exposure to both physical and cyber infrastructure vulnerabilities;

Create a reliable, interconnected and secure national information system infrastructure by the year 2003;

And, establish cooperation between government and industry to meet these goals.

Toward these goals, DoD has taken steps to protect its Critical Infrastructure.

We are implementing a plan for protection of internal critical infrastructures in order to reduce the vulnerability of assets critical to DoD missions;

The DoD is also supporting the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection and the National Infrastructure Protection Center.

And, we’re establishing a crisis reaction center to monitor DoD computer networks and react quickly to unauthorized network penetration.