The Marine Corps seeks a true data-centric approach to cybersecurity as it moves with the rest of the Department of Defense toward a unified network.
This means protection around any single piece of data would adhere to the network’s security principles, independent of the platform or application stack on which that piece of data resides.
DOD’s unified network is a modernization initiative intended to consolidate and integrate its disparate networks to allow for seamless data exchange. But adhering to that network’s security controls outside a centralized enterprise environment with good connectivity is hard to do.
“Cloud platforms do that well,” said Keegan Mills, engineering IT and cyber technology lead at Marine Corps Systems Command, during an AFCEA West panel on Tuesday. “It doesn’t work so well in the most distributed environments, when that data can exist in multiple places.”
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Rethinking What the Word “Network” Means
On the other hand, achieving data-centric cybersecurity in distributed environments would simplify everything. The network should behave as an “adaptive organism,” continuously adjusting to cyberthreats, said Guarang Dävé, cyber technology officer at MCSC, on the same panel.
Additionally, the unified network must be transport-agnostic, or able to connect to new transport systems without being hindered by their details.
“We have to rethink what the word ‘network’ actually means to us,” Mills said.
Typically, people talking about a network are only thinking about its plumbing: wires, switches, routers and firewalls.
“Let’s call it connectivity; let’s call it the underlay,” Mills said. “And let’s focus on the overlay.”
Building the overlay in tandem is what allows for data maneuverability. While that might seem to go against the federal requirement that all of DOD adopt zero-trust security by 2027, zero trust and identity management must necessarily evolve to achieve separation of connectivity and the network with the help of new National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines, Mills said.
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Data-Centric Cybersecurity Requires Partnerships
The Marines are already well on their way toward a “self-healing” network capable of adapting to threats. The Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity is bridging the gap between science and technology and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory with programs that can scale and deliver new capabilities, Dävé said.
Partnerships with industry also have a role to play in addressing challenges to a data-centric approach, said Shery Thomas, cyber technology officer at Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command. In particular, industry must develop continuous monitoring of the system variants it supplies agencies to identify potential security threats.
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