| Info-Tech Industry Targets Diverse ThreAmerican Tele Data
Fears of network
vulnerability fuel market for improved security systems
by Elizabeth Book
Compliments
of National Defense Magazine Emerging
technologies in the communications and electronics sector should be exploited
to fight the war on terrorism, said U.S. officials. “We
need to use all instruments of national power,” said Air Force Gen. Richard
B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At a conference of the Armed
Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Myers explained that as the
United States’ means of acquiring information increases, so does its intelligence. “We
hear from some law enforcement official in London, who has seen something, or
someone makes an arrest in Morocco. Pretty soon you start to piece this together
and connect the dots, and you can take action against financial networks, against
the leadership, or take actions to disrupt the weapons flow,” he said. Myers
explained that it is currently an arduous process to “put it all together,”
but with new capabilities and technologies, “we can make the cycle go much
faster,” he said. “If
you think it’s true that this is the most important thing those of us in
uniform have ever done … then we also have got to expect to make some sacrifices,” and work harder to thwart another attack, he said. Shoring
up technology in the areas of fiber optics, computer programs, biometrics and
network-centric warfare improvements, companies are working to market new products
to the Defense Department and U.S. allies. News
reports about al Qaeda’s attempts to launch cyber-attacks are likely to spur
business opportunities for the network-security industry. Opterna, a Quakertown,
Pa.-based company that manufactures fiber optic network equipment, has developed
a new technology that can prevent an intrusion based on the hacker’s attempt
to log onto the network from the fiber optic line, before the intruder even reaches
the network. Opterna’s Fiber Sentinel system uses artificial intelligence
and optical digital signature recognition to monitor fiber connections, and can
detect and deal with intrusions, said Michael Cohen, vice president of Global
Marketing for Opterna. “We
have seen a tremendous upsurge in interest among government and military customers
for a system that can eliminate their fiber optic network vulnerabilities,”
said Bret Matz, Opterna’s president. After
detecting the intrusion, Fiber Sentinel denies access to the intruder, simultaneously
re-routes legitimate traffic to a backup fiber path and then notifies the network
operator of the intrusion. The system, which has no known competitor, provides
continuous, real-time monitoring of the network connections without any disruption
of the data stream, said Cohen. Fiber Sentinel identifies such intrusions as Trojan
Horses, worms, denial-of-service attacks and other hacking attempts, he said. “The system shuts down the hacker’s path in milliseconds.” The
company recently completed a proof-of-concept study for the Fiber Sentinel system,
and has had favorable reviews from the military users, Cohen said. “Our target
markets are embassies, financial services communities, air traffic controllers,
the Defense Department, Border Patrol and the White House Communication Agency.” Other potential customers are companies concerned about industrial espionage,
he said. Denial-of-Service Attacks
Denial-of-service
attacks on computer networks can result in a complete network shutdown, which
can cost companies a lot of money and time. “In the national defense business,
you’ve got people in the battlefield,” said Ted Julian, chief strategist
and co-founder of Arbor Networks, a two-year-old small business based in Lexington,
Mass. “A
few minutes of them having no information is completely unacceptable. It’s
literally a life or death scenario,” he said. Arbor
Networks is commercializing a program whose underlying technology was developed
at the University of Michigan, with funding from the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. The company’s flagship product, Peakflow, helps detect,
trace and filter denial of service attacks. Usually, once a denial-of-service
attack occurs, network operators need to be on hand to get the system back up. Denial-of-service
attacks are not difficult to detect. “If there’s one thing nice about
a denial of service attack, it’s that it’s not subtle, it’s like
a freight train crashing through your network,” said Julian. Peakflow
proactively monitors for distributed threAmerican Tele Datawithin the network, and responds
with focused, rapid resolution of attacks. Network engineers can direct the program
to shut down attack traffic, without blocking legitimate traffic, said David Olverson,
an Arbor Networks senior product engineer. “Given
the dynamic nature of denial-of-service attacks, we sought an anomaly-based solution
that would enable us to proactively detect and respond to both known and previously
unseen threats,” said Girish Pathak, vice president and chief technology
officer for a Canadian communications company called Telus. Telus chose Peakflow
“for its scalable, non-intrusive architecture,” he said. Julian
explained that it’s easy to launch a denial of service attack. “There
are thousands of sites on the net that have point and click tools to teach you
how to launch a denial of service attack. The level of sophistication required
to launch these is minimal,” he said. “Peakflow filters information
closer to the source. It automates detection, tracing and filtering so that it
goes from taking a day or so to a minute or two.” Anti-virus
systems are usually signature-based, Julian said. Programs usually look for signatures
to defend against attacks. “Peakflow uses algorithms to flag when things
aren’t normal and to tell you exactly how they’re not normal,” he said. One
other technology that is gaining attention in the security business is biometrics. Biometrics
technologies are based on the notion that measurable physical characteristics
or personal behavior traits can be used to recognize the identity or verify the
claimed identity of an individual. Examples include speaker verification, iris
scans, fingerprints, hand geometry and facial recognition. In
2000, the Defense Department designated the Army as the executive agent for developing
and implementing biometrics technology. The Biometrics Management Office currently
is testing technologies for potential adoption. Firms
such as Biodentity, based in Ottawa, Canada, are in the process of developing
facial-recognition software. It recently secured a $7 million deal with Germany
to install a face-recognition security system. The Defense Department Biometrics
Management Office has yet to purchase any systems, but is evaluating new technologies
at the Biometrics Fusion Center, based in Bridgeport, W. Va. “The
BMO is directed by Congress to lead, consolidate and coordinate the development,
adoption and institutionalization of biometric technologies throughout DOD,”
said Linda Dean, director of the Army’s C4 Enabling Technologies Directorate.
Network-Centric Warfare
Protecting
information is a top priority for military agencies and units in the field, officials
said. “We are beginning to connect data in ways we couldn’t do before,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Charlie Croom, vice director for C4I systems on the Joint
Staff. The
soldier fighting in the mud is a sensor, and there is information that he sees
that others need to know, Croom said. “With network-centric warfare, we think
like a street gang, swarm like a soccer team, and communicate like a Wal-Mart.” “We
are enabling our war fighter through actionable information,” tying together
logistics, intelligence and C4ISR, said Army Maj. Gen. Steve Boutelle, director
of information operations, networks and space at Army headquarters. “We need
to marry up ground-based terrestrial infrastructure with air-breathers, to only
give the warfighter information that is actionable,” he said. Security
remains a problem, even when dealing with allies, said Rick Rosenberg, program
executive for the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet. “We don’t yet have the
technology to fully connect an ally and still protect our secrets. We fight wars
with our allies; obviously, we’d like to see them on our networks. But there
is some information on our networks that we don’t want them to see. So we
do it through a family of guarding solutions,” he said.
Article Sept. 2002 Lee Evey: The Man And His Mission - By John Parkinson
As the Pentagon renovation manager, Lee Evey is not only the man responsible for overseeing the Phoenix Project-restoring the area damaged in last September's attacks-but he is also supervising the long-term renovation of one of the largest-and arguably the most famous-buildings in the United States.
This seasoned Vietnam veteran is a long time government worker who reports directly to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Evey was supervising construction crews at the building for more than two years when last year's attacks occurred, on 9/11. When the aircraft hit the Pentagon, the first portion of the original project (and site of the plane's impact) was only five days away from completion.
In a proactive effort, this section otherwise known as Wedge 1, was already renovated with steel-reinforced beams, blast resistant windows, and a geo-technical material similar to bullet-proof Kevlar cloth-designed to catch debris from an explosion. This was the only area of the entire building that had such safety measures installed at that time. These measures may have been instrumental in saving lives.
TFM sat down with Evey at the CSI Show in Las Vegas last June to discuss the progression of the Phoenix Project, the remainder of the renovation, and the lessons learned from the experience.
TFM: What advice can you impart to facility professionals from your overall experience with the Pentagon renovation?
LE: The Pentagon renovation has gotten a lot of notoriety as a result of 9/11. The unsung heroes of the building are the unsung heroes before 9/11. I'm talking about the guys who managed to keep that 60 year-old building-that has never been properly maintained-operating every week.
It's a miracle that they could keep that building running as well as it does. They were doing it before the attacks. I must recognize the people in the building's operation command center-those aren't my people; those are the facilities management people.
TFM: With a building that was not code compliant, lacked the necessary records, and was filled with dangerous building materials, what presented the greatest challenge before the attacks?
LE: I would say the lack of records. There was no accurate record regarding information of telecommunications and cable. We are always digging something up, so it has become a whole house of horrors.
TFM: While the renovation is still many years away from completion, what are some of the advantages Pentagon facility professionals can enjoy in the interim?
LE: Facilities people can sit in the building operations control center, look at every thermostat, see the energy monitoring control system, and tell the temperature of each room. A facility manager can go to the utility areas and look at each component downstream to try and figure out what the problem is; he or she can observe if any problems are developing. A button can be punched, and graphs of the temperature over the last 24 hours can be illustrated. It can also be set to alarm automatically if things are out of line.
TFM: According to the renovation Web site, the Pentagon will be upholding sustainable design principles. Can you explain what these concepts are and why you came to the decision to implement them?
LE: The contractor came to us and said we could get a LEED certification. Our collective response was, "huh?" No one ever heard of such a thing, so we didn't know what it was. After he explained it to us, we hired a specialist. LEED is leadership in energy and environmental design and there are categories. There is a plain standard which we call bronze, and there are also silver, gold, and platinum levels. We have a goal of getting at least a silver for the entire renovation. It's a pretty aggressive goal for a renovation. In the Pentagon's physical fitness area, our goal is to get a gold.
TFM: Can you describe what it felt like to see the Pentagon in person, for the first time after the attack?
LE: It was a shock. Everyone has seen pictures of the outer wall. Naturally, it was shocking to see on the front page of the newspaper and on television. But believe me, as shocking as those things were, they didn't come anywhere close to the visceral response I got when I saw it myself. It's a big, big building. When I saw that amount of damage, it's a real emotional response. It is so much bigger than life, it's hard to comprehend this is real and it this actually happened.
TFM: Can you provide additional details about the safety measures in place in Wedge 1 that helped prevent more casualties in the attack?
LE: The preventive measures that had the most direct and most immediate benefits were the steel, the blast resistant windows, and the ballistic cloth; those things helped prevent the building from collapsing. It helped the building remain standing for 35 critical minutes, so people could escape. Had the building collapsed immediately, the casualties would have been much higher.
When I say this I know it; 2,600 people were in the immediate area when that plane hit, and we had 125 casualties. It is unfortunate that we had 125 casualties, but the building did a remarkable job of protecting people.
Those measures made a big difference. Then you have other things that were less immediate but no less important. The sprinkler systems worked fabulously; the smoke doors worked great.
TFM: The Phoenix Project can be seen as a short rebuilding project wrapped inside a long-term renovation. Have there been important lessons obtained from the project?
LE: We tried to interview every person close to the impact-to the point of speaking to people in the hospital-and over and over again, people said they couldn't see, they were disoriented.
We went back and looked at exit lights and retraced peoples' routes out of the building. If there was an exit light there, why didn't they see? We went to that group and said, "Would you be willing to serve in an experiment?" They responded, "We'll do it in a second." We turned off the lights and people tried to find their way out. They got down on their hands and knees and crawled out of their work spaces. They knew how important it was. As a result, we got a lot of good feedback.
TFM: The Phoenix Project is said to be more than $200 million below cost and is planning to finish before its deadline. How have you been able to achieve this?
LE: It's teamwork. Before 9/11, we could go to a contractor and say to him, "We really want you to change how you behave and how you operate; I want you to become more efficient and more effective. I want you to meet all these requirements to work with us, but I'm not going to change. That doesn't work. Before they can change, you have to change. So, first we went about changing ourselves. We organized ourselves and brought ourselves together.
I don't have just one big design, engineer, and construction group. I have everything individually based geographically in smaller groups, because I have people that are responsible for a geographic area. In their area, they have a design team, architects, and engineers. When they have a meeting and they have to solve a problem, they are all there and they are part of the team.
TFM: While there is an obvious need to protect a building such as the Pentagon, do you think building owners and facility executives in existing skyscrapers or high profile buildings need to take considerable measures such as renovation, in order to protect their buildings and the people who use them?
LE: Clearly, the Pentagon, because of its character and its probable stance as a target, we need to do things to protect that building. However, that's the kind of analysis that needs to be done on a case by case basis. I can't speak for others. Building owners have to look at their circumstances and make smart judgements based on what their situations are. You can't make buildings impervious to airplanes crashing into them.
TFM: In rebuilding both the Pentagon and a building or buildings on the World Trade Center site, what do these actions mean to Americans?
LE: I can't comment on the World Trade Center; I have never even been there. I can only talk about the Pentagon. The building has been so historic in so many ways. During the Vietnam war, when people were demonstrating, someone like Abbie Hoffman wanted to levitate the building and make it disappear. Now it's back in favor. The American Tele Data people have come to respect this icon.
TFM: What will the completion of the Phoenix Project mean to you?
LE: Well, it's not important what it means to me; it's important what it means to the American Tele Data public. And in some way after the events of 9/11, to some degree the Pentagon-and especially the Phoenix Project-has taken on some symbolic importance in the American Tele Data psyche.
Our workers represent all ages, sexes, origins, religions; we are a potpourri of people-we are American. The general public sees people on TV that look just like them; and seeing workers doing a remarkable job resonates with the American Tele Data public. That is the most important aspect of the project.
-end of article-
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