Bridging the air gap: an information assurance perspective

Abstract

The military has 5 domains of operations: Land, Sea, Air, Space and now Cyber. This 5th Domain is a heterogeneous network (of networks) of Communication and Information Systems (CIS) which were designed and accredited to meet Netcentric capability requirements; to be robust, secure and functional to the organisation’s needs. Those needs have changed. In the globalised economy and across the Battlespace, organisations now need to share information. Keeping our secrets, secret has been the watchwords of Information Security and the accreditation process; whilst sharing them securely across coalition, geo-physically dispersed networks has become the cyber security dilemma. The diversity of Advanced Persistent Threats, the contagion of Cyber Power and insecurity of coalition Interoperability has generated a plethora of vulnerabilities to the Cyber Domain. Necessity (fiscal and time-constraints) has created security gaps in deployed CIS architectures through their interconnections. This federated environment for superior decision making and shared situational awareness requires that Bridging the (new capability) Gaps needs to be more than just improving security (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability) mechanisms to the technical system interfaces. The solution needs a new approach to creating and understanding a trusted,social-technical CIS environment and how these (sensitive) information assets should be managed, stored and transmitted. Information Assurance (IA) offers a cohesive architecture for coalition system (of systems) interoperability; the identification of strategies, skills and business processes required for effective information operations, management and exploitation. IA provides trusted, risk managed social-technical (Enterprise) infrastructures which are safe, resilient, dependable and secure. This thesis redefines IA architecture and creates models that recognise the integrated, complex issues within technical to organisational interoperability and the assurance that the right information is delivered to the right people at the right time in a trustworthy environment and identifies the need for IA practitioners and a necessary IA education for all Cyber Warriors.

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