Via SecurityFocus -
Bristling over the thought that terrorists and other U.S. enemies could be controlling portions of the nation's virtual air space, the U.S. Air Force committed to funding a Cyberspace Command in late 2008, military officials said on Thursday.
The command would eventually be on even footing with the military branch's Air Command and Space Command, Air Force officials told Reuters. The group will be tasked with protecting both military and civilian areas of the Internet.
"The equivalent of what's happening in the cyberspace domain right now is if we were allowing al Qaeda to fly fighters over the United States right now on a routine basis," U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Robert Elder said on the Marketplace radio show. "No way would we allow that to happen. We would definitely challenge them."
Online attackers have struck at the U.S. military through the Internet on a regular basis. Attacks using stealthy Trojan horses sent to less than ten targets have increased over the last two years. Sensitive personnel data has been stolen from several branches of the military.
Because of such incidents, government employees are held to toughened standards on laptop use and the Army has started to require Trusted Computing hardware in every laptop procured in the future.
The Cyberspace Command will be based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, according to Reuters.
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