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(U) Third SID/IAD Offsite - It's All About Networks!
FROM: MG Richard Quirk, USA
Signals Intelligence Director
Run Date: 09/28/2004
(S) Have you noticed that everything is about networks nowadays? Networks offer both
opportunity and threat in the global signal environment. This is especially true in areas where
vulnerabilities and exploitation techniques overlap between NSA's "Provide" and "Protect"
missions. To jointly meet this challenge, people-to-people "networking" between SID and IAD
leadership is on the rise.
(S) More and more, the way we do SIGINT is how we do IA. Meaning: we exploit our enemy's
networks by using networks. Therefore, the logical next step after we discover an enemy's
vulnerability in the process of doing SIGINT is to share that weakness with those who protect
our networks, and thus increase our chances of surviving the same level of attack from others.
The same holds true in reverse. The experts in Information Assurance can help guide our efforts
to find those vulnerable spots in targeted networks.
(S)
and I have hosted a series of off-sites in which our respective leadership teams meet to
collaborate on common issues and to seek integrated approaches to the opportunities and threat
of today's global signal environment. At the most recent of these off-sites, held on 15 July, we
covered topics ranging from the governance of NSA and its extended enterprise to information
sharing issues related to Transformation 2.0 . One excellent example of our future-oriented
integration is the NSA Threat Analysis Center, a joint I4 and S2 operation.
(U//FOUO) Other topics included:
Continued and improved cooperation with other Intelligence Agencies,
NSA/CSS Governance and,
Opportunities for SID and IAD personnel to spend a few months in one another's shoes.
(S) As we work to exploit foreign networks, protect our own, and take on an increased role in
offensive information operations, collaboration opportunities between SID and IAD will grow.
Numerous SIGINT and Information Assurance challenges lie ahead as our nation builds DoD's
Global Information Grid and establishes Horizontal Integration across the Intelligence
Community.
(U) We are eager to have our next sessions and continue to address these challenges together.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108