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i 

97–198 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–52] 

IMPLEMENTING THE DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE CYBER STRATEGY 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

KEVIN GATES, Professional Staff Member 

LINDSAY KAVANAUGH, Professional Staff Member 

NEVE SCHADLER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Rogers, ADM Michael S., USN, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command .................. 5 

Work, Hon. Robert O., Deputy Secretary of Defense; accompanied by Terry 

Halvorsen, Chief Information Officer, Department of Defense ........................ 2 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Rogers, ADM Michael S. .................................................................................. 58 

Work, Hon. Robert O. ....................................................................................... 49 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Brooks ......................................................................................................... 74 

Ms. Duckworth .................................................................................................. 74 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 73 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 73 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 73 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Forbes ......................................................................................................... 77 

Mr. Lamborn ..................................................................................................... 79 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 77 

Ms. Speier ......................................................................................................... 79 

Mr. Walz ............................................................................................................ 79 

(1) 

IMPLEMENTING THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

CYBER STRATEGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 30, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ 

Thornberry (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Let me welcome our witnesses and guests for our second hearing this week at 

the full committee level on cybersecurity. We are very pleased to 

have a distinguished panel of witnesses to help us with this challenging area. 

For those members who were able to participate in our hearing 

yesterday, we heard from the private sector and from academia, 

think tanks, about some of the challenges that we face in cyber. 

For example, questions such as: What is the role of the military in 

defending private infrastructure? Should private industry be able 

to hack back against those who may try to steal their intellectual 

property? What does ‘‘deterrence’’ mean when it comes to cyber? 

A number of difficult questions that we talked about some, but 

we will continue to pursue that line today. Cyber, as many people 

say, is a new domain of warfare, and so what that means for the 

Department of Defense [DOD], what that means for our country’s 

national security is very much at or near the top of the agenda for 

all of us who are involved in national security. 

Before I turn to our distinguished panel of witnesses, I will yield 

to the distinguished ranking member for any comments he would 

like to make about today’s hearing. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding 

this hearing and the one yesterday. 

Our outside experts sort of basically said that the strategy is 

sound. It is the implementation that is key. And, obviously, this is 

a very difficult area of public policy. It is constantly evolving. The 

threat changes every single day. We have to prepare to meet that 

threat. 
2 

I think a lot of it is, you know, having the right personnel, having very, very smart people who understand technology, and obviously, we have to compete against private industry as we try to 

bring those folks in. So that is definitely a challenge. 

Coordination is also a challenge. There are so many different 

pieces of the Department of Defense: Who is in charge of cyber 

strategy, and how is it being implemented DOD-wide because, as 

we all know, the big problem with cyber is the classic single point 

of failure. You can get absolutely everything right except for one 

thing and have a disaster. How do we comprehensively make sure 

that we are taking into account every single one of those points of 

failure? That is not easy to do. 

And then some of the questions that the chairman raised about, 

you know, when is offensive cyberattacks okay? What are the rules 

of the road? And I think that that is a real challenge as we deal 

with China, as we deal with Russia, as we deal with Iran and others. What are the red lines, and how do we respond if someone 

crosses those red lines? 

I know that the agreement that was reached with China on this 

is unsatisfactory to many. It is unsatisfactory to me. It has a long 

way to go, but I think we need to have those types of conversations, 

certainly with Russia and China, so that we better understand 

what the rules of the road are so that we can get to the point 

where we don’t, you know, stumble into something greater than we 

had expected. 

But I know cyber policy isn’t easy, but I look forward to hearing 

from Deputy Secretary Work and our other witnesses on how we 

can get our arms around it and then, also, of course, you know, 

what the legislative branch can do to make it easier for you to implement those policies. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Again, I want to thank our distinguished witnesses for being 

here. We are very pleased to have the Honorable Robert Work, 

Deputy Secretary of Defense; Admiral Michael Rogers, the Commander of USCYBERCOM [U.S. Cyber Command]; and Mr. Terry 

Halvorsen, the Chief Information Officer [CIO] for the Department 

of Defense. 

Without objection, your full written statements will be made part 

of the record. Thank you for submitting those. 

And, Mr. Secretary, we will turn the floor over to you for any 

comments you would like to make. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT O. WORK, DEPUTY SECRETARY 

OF DEFENSE; ACCOMPANIED BY TERRY HALVORSEN, CHIEF 

INFORMATION OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Secretary WORK. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, Ranking 

Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee. 

Thank you for inviting us here this morning to discuss the Department of Defense efforts in cyberspace. As both the chairman 

and the ranking member said, this is an extremely important issue 

that we grapple with every day. And so we welcome these types of 

meetings to discuss the policy issues. 
3 

As you know, cyber intrusions and attacks by both state and 

nonstate actors have increased dramatically in recent years. And 

particularly troubling to us, as the Department of Defense and as 

a nation, are the increased frequency in scale of state-sponsored 

cyber actors breaching U.S. Government and business networks. 

These adversaries continually adapt and evolve in response to our 

cyber countermeasures. They threaten our networks and systems of 

the Department of Defense, our Nation’s critical infrastructure, and 

the U.S.’ companies and interests globally. 

The recent spate of cyber events that have been in the press, the 

intrusions into OPM [Office of Personnel Management], the Sony, 

and the Joint Staff networks by three separate state actors is not 

just espionage of convenience, but a threat to our national security. 

As one of our responses to this growing threat, the Department 

recently released its 2015 DOD Cyber Strategy, which will guide 

the development of our cyber forces and strengthen our cybersecurity and cyber deterrence posture. 

We have three core cyber missions, as defined in our strategy. 

First and foremost—and this is what Secretary Carter has made a 

clear number one priority first—is to defend DOD network systems 

and information. That is job number one. Second, we help defend 

the Nation against cyber events of significant consequence. And 

third, we provide cyber support to operational and contingency 

plans in support of our combatant commanders. And in this regard, 

U.S. Cyber Command may be directed to conduct cyber operations 

in coordination with other U.S. Government agencies, as appropriate, to deter and defeat strategic threats in that domain. 

Now, my submitted statement contains additional detail on how 

we are moving to achieve these goals, but I would like to highlight 

a particular focus, which is bolstering our cyber deterrence. This 

was a big issue yesterday in the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

I want to acknowledge to all of you upfront that in terms of deterrence, we are not where we need to be as a nation or as a Department. We do believe that there are some things the Department is doing that are working, but we have to improve in this 

area, and that is why we have revised our cyber strategy. 

Deterrence is a function of perception. First and foremost, it 

works by convincing a potential adversary that the costs of conducting the attack far outweigh any potential benefits that they 

might gain from it. The three main pillars of our strategy are denial, resilience, and cost imposition. 

When we talk about denial, denial means preventing a cyber adversary from achieving their objectives. 

Resilience is ensuring that our systems will continue to perform 

their essential military tasks, even in a cyber-contested environment or while under attack. 

And cost imposition is our ability to make sure cyber adversaries 

pay a much higher price for the malicious activities than they had 

hoped for. 

I would like to just dive down deep into these three kinds of pillars very, very quickly. To deny an attacker the ability to adversely 

impact our military missions, first and foremost, we have to defend 

our own information networks and data systems. Now, we have 
4 

made a lot of investments in this regard, and we believe they are 

starting to bear fruit, but technical upgrades, this is not just about 

technical upgrades. Because nearly all successful network exploitations up to this point can be traced to a single or multiple human 

errors, raising the overall level of individual cybersecurity awareness and performance throughout the Department is absolutely 

paramount. So we are working to transform our DOD cybersecurity 

culture for the long term by improving human performance and accountability within our systems. 

As part of this effort, we just recently published a cybersecurity 

discipline implementation plan and a scorecard, the first of its 

kind. The first time it was implemented was in August of this year. 

These, we believe, are going to be critical to our strategic goal of 

defending the networks and securing our data and mitigating risks 

to our missions. The new scorecard system is reported to the Secretary and me on a monthly basis, and it will hold commanders accountable for hardening and protecting their end points and critical 

systems, and directs compliance with our overall policy. 

Denial also means defending the Nation against cyber events of 

significant consequence. The President has directed DOD, working 

in partnership with other agencies, to be prepared to blunt and 

stop the most dangerous cyber events against our Nation and its 

infrastructure. There may be times where the President or Secretary of Defense directs DOD and others to conduct a defensive 

cyber operation to stop a cyberattack from impacting our national 

interests. And so that means to us we have to build the capabilities 

to prevent or stop a potential cyberattack from achieving its effect. 

This is an extremely challenging mission. It requires high-end 

teams and capabilities, and we are building our Cyber Mission 

Force and deepening our partnerships with law enforcement in the 

Intelligence Community, and we can talk about that in questioning. 

A second principle of deterrence is improving our resiliency by 

reducing the ability of our adversaries to attack us through cyberspace and protecting our ability to continue to execute missions 

even while in a degraded cyber environment. 

Our adversaries unquestionably view DOD cyber dependency as 

a potential wartime vulnerability. Therefore, we have to have the 

ability to fight through these cyberattacks as a mission-critical 

function. That means normalizing cybersecurity as part of our mission assurance efforts, building redundancy into our systems whenever they are vulnerable, and training constantly to operate in a 

contested cyber environment. 

Our adversaries have to see over time that cyberattacks will not 

provide them a significant operational advantage, and that will be 

one of the key aspects of deterrence. 

The third and final aspect is having the demonstrated capability 

to respond with cyber or noncyber means to impose costs on a potential adversary. The administration has made clear that the 

United States will respond in a time, manner, and place of our 

choosing, and it has developed cyber options to hold aggressors at 

risk, if required. 

Successfully executing our missions in cyberspace requires a 

whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach. This is a much, 
5 

much, much more difficult problem than the debates we had over 

nuclear weapons in the 1950s. For that reason, DOD continues to 

work with our partners and other Federal departments and agencies, the private sector, and our partners around the world to address the shared challenges we face. 

Secretary Carter, I think you know, has placed a particular emphasis on partnering with the private sector. We know we do not 

have all the right answers, and our working with industry will be 

very, very critical to make sure we have both the cutting edge of 

technology as well as best practices and procedures. 

Finally, our relationship with Congress is absolutely critical. We 

very, very much appreciate the support for DOD cyber activities 

both last year and this year, as we understand, in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA]. I encourage continued 

efforts to pass legislation on cybersecurity information sharing, on 

data breach notification, and law enforcement provisions related to 

cybersecurity, which were included in the President’s legislative 

proposal submitted earlier this year. 

The American people expect us to defend against cyber threats 

of significant consequence. The Department looks forward to working with this committee and Congress to ensure we continue to 

take every step possible to confront the substantial cybersecurity 

risk we face. 

Thank you for inviting us here today, Mr. Chairman, and the attention you are giving this urgent matter. I look forward to all of 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Work can be found in the 

Appendix on page 49.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Admiral Rogers, thanks for being here. You are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF ADM MICHAEL S. ROGERS, USN, COMMANDER, 

U.S. CYBER COMMAND 

Admiral ROGERS. Sir, thank you. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking 

Member Smith, and distinguished members of the committee, I am 

honored to appear before you today and before the American people 

to explain how we are implementing the Department of Defense 

Cyber Strategy. I thank you for convening this forum and for your 

efforts in this important area. I am equally pleased to be sitting 

alongside today Deputy Secretary of Defense Work and the DOD 

CIO Terry Halvorsen. 

It gives me great pride today to highlight the accomplishments 

of the uniform and civilian personnel of U.S. Cyber Command and 

its components. I am both grateful for and humbled by the opportunity that I have been given to lead this cyber team. U.S. Cyber 

Command and its subordinate elements have been given a responsibility to direct, operate, and secure the Department’s systems and 

networks, which are fundamental to the execution of all of DOD’s 

missions. The Department and the Nation rely on us to build ready 

cyber forces and to be prepared to employ them when significant 

cyber events against the Nation require DOD support. 

We are expected to work closely with other combatant commanders to integrate cyber operations into their broader military 
6 

missions. Policy makers and commanders alike look to us for cyber 

options in all phases of operations. 

Our military is in constant contact with agile learning adversaries in cyberspace, adversaries that have shown the capacity and 

the willingness to hit soft targets in the U.S. The demand for our 

cyber forces continues to outstrip supply as we bring more capability online, but we continue to rapidly mature based on real world 

experiences and the hard work of the men and women of U.S. 

Cyber Command and our service cyber components. 

The Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense Cyber 

Strategy direct us to intensify our efforts to defend the United 

States and its interests in our digital age. It is my intent that we 

move forward quickly with our partners to build our military capabilities, and I have provided this guidance in a recently released 

Commander’s Vision and Guidance for U.S. Cyber Command. 

In line with that guidance, we are building and employing the 

Cyber Mission Forces. We are conducting exercises with our interagency and private sector partners to inform whole-of-nation responses to crises in cyberspace, and we are supporting DHS [Department of Homeland Security] and FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], when directed, to defend the Nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber incidents. We support operational commanders around the world every day. 

The bottom line is we are being challenged as never before to defend our Nation’s interests and values in cyberspace against states, 

groups, and individuals that are using increasingly sophisticated 

capabilities to conduct cyber coercion, cyber aggression, and cyber 

exploitation. The targets of their efforts extend well beyond government and into privately owned businesses and personally identifiable information. 

I welcome this opportunity to elaborate on the progress we have 

made to date and where we should be focussing going forward to 

ensure that we continue to stay ahead and deter threats to secure 

our digital networks and our combat systems, to ensure our ability 

to execute the Department’s missions. 

With that, I look forward to your questions, and thank you again 

for taking the time today to spend on this important topic. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Rogers can be found in the 

Appendix on page 58.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

And, Mr. Halvorsen, I understand you do not have a prepared 

statement but are available to answer questions. Is that correct? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. That is correct, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Great. Thank you for being here, sir. I appreciate 

it. 

Admiral Rogers, yesterday, one of our witnesses made the point 

that in any challenge in warfare, what counts is the net assessment. In other words, we can talk about what we are doing, but 

what really counts is what the results of that versus what the adversaries are doing. And so just at the very highest level, as you 

look at cyber as a domain of warfare, how would you describe the 

net assessment, where we are today and where those trends are 

taking us? Are we in a good direction to reduce the vulnerabilities 

and have the capabilities we need? Are the adversaries moving 
7 

faster than we are? How would you describe that kind of net-net 

in cyber today? 

Admiral ROGERS. So this is a mission set where I think we have 

to acknowledge we have at least one peer competitor in the form 

of the Russians when I look at their level of capability, when I look 

at their activity. Then we have a set of other nation-states we pay 

great attention to who I am watching increase their level of investment, increase their capacity, and their capability. The Chinese are 

probably the ones that get the most attention, if you will, but they 

are not alone by any stretch of the imagination. 

The challenge for us, in many ways, is we are attempting to overcome literally decades of investment with a very different attitude, 

where redundancy, resiliency, and defenseability in terms of our 

systems—whether they be our networks, whether they be the combat systems and the platforms that we count on to execute our missions—defenseability, redundancy, and resiliency were, until only 

recently, they were never core design characteristics. They tended 

to be something that we thought of after we focused on efficiency, 

cost, speed. 

And so we find ourselves trying to overcome literally decades of 

investment, of sunk capital costs, if you will, if I was a business. 

I think we have got a good strategy, a good vision for where we 

need to go. The challenge always is you are never as fast as you 

want to be. So as a commander, the argument I have made with 

my teams is: So this is all about prioritization, Team. We have got 

to step back and assess where do we think the greatest vulnerabilities lie, where do we think our opponents are most interested in 

attempting to generate effects against us, and how do we forestall 

their ability to do that in broad terms. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, to summarize, we are getting better but not 

better fast enough. 

Admiral ROGERS. I think that is a fair—— 

Secretary WORK. Mr. Chairman, if I could add something to this 

on the net assessment side. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. 

Secretary WORK. All of the adversaries that we face are generally, in this regard, are authoritarian powers. We are the most 

open nation on the Earth. It is a tremendous competitive advantage, but it provides—we are much more open on our Internet than 

our adversaries are in their own countries. That makes us inherently more vulnerable. The number of attack surfaces that we have 

to defend against are very, very much larger. So in terms of net 

assessment, that is one of the things that are challenging us and 

we are trying to sort through. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you, on the three core missions you 

laid out, number two is defend the Nation against significant cyberattacks. As you know, there has been considerable conversation 

about what that means. So if I am a company under cyberattack, 

when is the government going to come help defend me? And I realize you probably can’t put a dollar threshold or something very specific on what that means, a significant cyber event, but can you 

help clarify for us, when the Department of Defense becomes en-
8 

gaged in defending the country and what that means, significant 

cyber event? 

Secretary WORK. Well, those were the—we call it a cyber event 

or activity of significant consequence. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry, Mr. Secretary, is your microphone 

on? 

Secretary WORK. I am sorry, sir. You are exactly right. We are 

obligated to defend the Nation against cyberattacks or cyber activities of significant consequence, and that is not a purely defined 

term. Each attack would be looked at. So, for example: Did the attack result in any death? Injury? Significant destruction was associated with it? Was it an act of espionage? Was it an act of cybercrime? In other words, was it a nonstate actor who is trying to get 

a PII [personally identifiable information]? But a significant consequence would be things which would go against our national critical infrastructure, and this would be decided primarily with the 

Department of Homeland Security, which would have the lead on 

attacks within the United States on critical infrastructure, and we 

would then work through with the policies to make an appropriate 

response. 

Admiral Rogers works this constantly, so I think he would be 

very well placed to answer this question, too. 

Admiral ROGERS. I would agree completely with the Secretary. 

It explains why the response to Sony, for example, is very different than the response to OPM. We try to look at things in a 

case-by-case basis given a specific set of facts, and we are clearly 

still working our way through some of these broader definitions. I 

don’t think there is any doubt about that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I appreciate it. I think other members may 

want to follow up. 

I mean, you look at OPM and huge consequences for our national 

security. I presume if you had seen it occurring, then there would 

have been action taken to prevent it, but it is large consequences, 

even for the theft of information that did not result in death, we 

trust. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

And I know you can’t talk about this in an open setting in terms 

of what our response has been to some of these cyberattacks, but 

can I ask if, you know, you feel that response has been effective? 

Has it deterred more attacks? At this point, how comfortable are 

you that our responses to—and again, there are, as you have laid 

out, levels of cyberattacks. When you pass a certain level, then, you 

know, we feel like a response is appropriate, have those responses 

been at all effective in your view at this point? And how would you 

define effectiveness? 

Secretary WORK. I would say at this point we don’t believe that 

our deterrence policy has been effective up to this point or as effective as it should be, and that is why we want to strengthen it. As 

we talked, one of the problems is attribution. So the first thing is, 

where did the attack come from, a geographical location? Then who 

was the actor who the attack came from? And then did the state 

control the actor, or was the actor operating independently? 
9 

So that will tell you whether it is a law enforcement response, 

whether it should be economic sanctions, whether it should be offensive or defensive cyber operations. And I believe what we have 

to do is have a very strong policy on cost imposition, which we are 

working towards and we have announced, and then we have to 

prove that through our actions. So I would say that we are not 

where we would want to be in terms of deterrence right now. 

Mr. SMITH. And following up on that, how effective are you at figuring out where the attack came from? Now, I understand there is 

the final piece of that is the one that is really most difficult because even if you were to determine who the actor was, was that 

person acting on their own or acting at the behest of a government? 

But how effective are you at when an attack comes in saying, all 

right, tracing it back and saying, that is the person who did it? 

Admiral ROGERS. We continue to gain increased insight and 

knowledge in that area. If you look, for example, using Sony as an 

illustrative example, we were very quickly able to determine the 

nation-state and the specific actor within the nation-state. I think 

that is one reason, again, why you saw, you know, a policy response that was relatively quick. We were able to provide policymakers with a high level of confidence as to who did it, how they 

did it. It really varies. Though I will say we are watching actors 

around the world as they realize that we are gaining increased capability in our ability to attribute cyber activity, specific nationstates, specific groups. 

It is interesting watching them now attempt to obscure that, create different relationships, use different processes, so this is one, 

as was indicated in the opening, the dynamics here just change so 

quickly. It is the nature of this. I don’t see that fundamental 

changing any time soon. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

Secretary WORK. One of the problems is we have a very strong 

policy that we will respond in a place and a time and a manner 

of our own choosing, and the problem with this is it is not like it 

can happen sometimes very, very quickly. First, we have to go 

through the attribution phase. Then we have to determine: Was it 

cybercrime? Was it an independent actor? Was the actor responding in charge of the state? And what are the appropriate responses? That might a law enforcement measure. It might be economic sanctions. It might be offensive or defensive cyber operations. It could be military operations, depending on the damage or 

threat of the attack to our Nation. 

So this is much, much different than nuclear deterrence where 

you can attribute the attack immediately, generally, and you have 

specific response options already ready. In this case, it is a much 

more whole-of-government approach that takes more time. 

Mr. SMITH. Understood. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Jones. 

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

You know, this is the new world we all live in. We all know that. 

It is kind of interesting—I am getting to a question in just a moment—but I bank with the credit union here in Washington. So, 
10 

last Saturday, I started calling 24-hour banking to find out what 

was in my account. As of today, they are not online. 

Well, I am certainly not saying that is a cyberspace invasion of 

anything, but it is just the complexities of the world we are living 

in now. So when I hear your testimony, I want to first say thank 

you for who you are and what you are doing. 

My next question would be, at this point, knowing that we are 

constantly here in Washington worried about a shutdown, worried 

about the debt growing, I will never forget—I have had reason to 

call Admiral Mullen recently—of course, he is retired—the former 

chairman—I have great respect for him—on a totally different subject. And I have used many times back in my district, the Third 

District of North Carolina, the home of Camp Lejeune, Cherry 

Point, I have used many times what he said when he was chairman: The biggest threat to our military is the debt of our Nation. 

What I would like to note, as you move forward to give us the 

very best protection that you can, what type of financial commitment should the taxpayers and the Congress understand that we 

need to make to ensure that we have got the best protection? 

Secretary WORK. I believe we have been very clear, sir, that the 

President’s request, the PB16 [President’s budget 2016] request, we 

believe, is the absolute minimum needed to provide the national security necessary for the United States. 

I would just like to say, I was talking with the chairman just before this, and we are very, very thankful—or we hope—that we will 

avoid a shutdown. This would be extremely disruptive. I think Admiral Rogers can tell you: the last time we went through a shutdown, it set us back 6 months in terms of preparing our Cyber Mission Force. So we believe the PB16 level is the absolute minimum. 

I would also like to say that, you know, in the last 6 years, we 

have been under a CR [continuing resolution] for 2 years of the 6 

years, and each of the first quarters of the fiscal year, we have 

been under a CR for about 93 percent of the time. In essence, we 

are operating in a 9-month fiscal year. There is no COO [chief operations officer] in the United States who could operate under this 

type of uncertainty, and we hope that the CR will be handled or 

will be resolved as quickly as possible. 

So I very much thank the question, sir. This is an important 

thing. I hope that we will be able to resolve our differences on the 

budget level and provide for the national security. 

Admiral ROGERS. If I could. 

Mr. JONES. Excuse me. 

Go ahead, Admiral, please. 

Admiral ROGERS. The only other comment I would make is, and 

I think it goes to the point you are trying to make: There shouldn’t 

be any doubt in anyone’s mind that there is a cost component to 

all of this, that, as a Department, we try to prioritize that because 

we clearly realize there are many competing requirements and resources are tight for the Nation, and we certainly understand that. 

But there just shouldn’t be any doubt that there is a cost component to that. And that cost may change over time, but I don’t think 

it is going to get cheaper for us, at least in the near term, not with 

the level of activity that you see out there every day. 
11 

Secretary WORK. Congressman Jones, I will tell you that, regardless of level of our budget, Secretary Carter has made it clear that 

cyber defense and cybersecurity is going to be at the very, very top 

of our priority list. So whatever budget we receive, cyber will receive the attention that we believe it deserves. 

Mr. JONES. Well, I believe that the shutdown will probably be 

avoided, which you know, not getting into the politics of that, but 

I think it probably will be. And I think you all have done a great 

job. I think the American people, like me—I am not talking about 

my colleagues—have really understood that this threat of cyberspace warfare in any form is probably at the foremost, as you said, 

Admiral, will grow and the threat will become more and more. So 

I thank you gentlemen for being here today and your testimony. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to all of you for being here. And as you know, we 

heard from outside groups, the private sector, yesterday, and I 

think you spoke, certainly, Mr. Secretary, to the importance of that 

partnership. One of the questions I basically asked them was, you 

know, what hampers that relationship? What hampers moving forward? And they spoke of the regulatory burden that is placed on 

companies wishing to work and partner with the DOD, and particularly for newer companies who don’t have a history of working 

with the government. 

And so I am wondering how can we make that process easier? 

Do you think that is a appropriate analysis or response? You may 

feel that you have done everything you can to assist in that way, 

but obviously, there is a different response. 

The other issue is really whether or not we are kind of losing out 

on working with some of the best minds in the business because 

we just make it so difficult for them to work with the Department 

of Defense. 

Secretary WORK. Congresswoman, I would ask Terry Halvorsen, 

our CIO, who works extensively with the private sector, to answer 

your question. I think he is the best to do that. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Thank you, sir. 

I think there is absolutely some truth that we have got to get 

better at bringing in particularly newer companies. I think, first, 

you have to understand, if DOD was a Fortune 500 company, we 

are Fortune 1. We are very big. That in itself causes us some difficulty with companies that do not have experience with us. 

So in the last year, some of the things that we have done to 

make that better, we have reached out, as many of you have seen, 

to Silicon Valley. We are holding different events to make industry 

clearer. One of the things that we did last year, which I thought 

was one of the bigger breakthroughs, you probably will ask me a 

little bit later about Cloud. One of things we did to make Cloud 

easier for people to play and easier for industry to get in, we wrote 

our new Cloud policy completely with industry. First time we have 

done that. They actually—we convened them, we brought them in 

from the beginning. We had leading industry providers—I think 
12 

Amazon—on the panel to write that. We have gotten very good reviews from that. We have got to continue to do that. 

This year we are going to bring some industry players into the 

DOD CIO staff and some of the other service CIO staffs. We will 

actually do exchange with the industry. Some of that will be focused on some of the new industries so that we learn how they 

need to respond and how we need to respond. 

So we have to do better. I think we are doing better in that area, 

and I think you will see more results in the next 6, 7 months coming down that we will be able to concretely show you what we have 

done to improve that relationship. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yeah, that is good to hear. I think we have to continue to push and, obviously, ask them how that is working. I 

guess we also would agree that in the procurement areas, again, 

maybe there are some better ways of doing it. And everybody talks 

about it, but sometimes it feels like nothing is getting done. 

So I wanted to ask you as well in terms of the hiring as well because in personnel areas, we know that we are not as adaptive in 

hiring as, obviously, as the private sector is. What are we doing to 

make sure that in the field of cybersecurity that we are able to 

push through nominations to positions so that they don’t have to 

wait so long that they go ahead and take those jobs in the private 

sector? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Two things, and first of all, let me thank all of 

you. You did pass good legislation that gave Mike Rogers and I 

some more authority to directly hire people without having some 

of the normal rules and regulations that we have to follow so we 

could compete. I know there is some work on some additional. We 

would appreciate that. 

I think one fact we just have to understand: we are not going to 

pay exactly as much as industry in the cybersecurity area and 

some other areas. One of the things we have going for us: we have 

a pretty exciting mission. So when I talk to—and I spend a lot of 

time talking to people who want to come to work for DOD. We are 

trying to attract them, and we have been able to pull some people 

in even the last year into my staff. As long as we can get them in 

fast and offer them the right wage, which the new authority gives 

us, I think we will be able to continue in the right—they want to 

work this mission. And your legislation that recently passed has 

really helped us with that. Thank you. 

Admiral ROGERS. If I could just add, this is one area where I suspect over time we may in fact end up coming back to you as our 

experience tells us, are there things we could be doing differently? 

Are there challenges here we need your help in overcoming? Because I always remind people, look, while we spend a lot of time 

focused on technology, don’t ever underestimate, at its heart, this 

is an enterprise powered by men and women. And they are our advantage, and that is where we need to make sure we are getting 

really good talent. 

To date, I would argue, at the mission force level, the execution 

piece for us, we have been able to exceed our expectations both in 

terms of the ability to bring in quality people, as well as retaining 

them. 
13 

Mrs. DAVIS. Perhaps some chart showing the differences as a result of some of these changes would be really helpful in understanding what the impact has really been. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And as I mentioned earlier, we stand ready to work with you all 

on those authorities as we assess how they are doing. That is very 

important. 

Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I reiterate what Mr. Jones said in thanking each of you for 

what you do for our country and for being here today. 

Mr. Secretary, you probably think strategically and analytically 

on national defense issues as well as anybody we have in government today, and we appreciate and respect your opinions as you 

come before this committee. 

I would like to follow up on some questions that the chairman 

offered specifically related to net assessment, and one of the things 

that I just want to ask, as you are aware, some of the best strategy 

we have developed over the years have been informed and supported by the practice of net assessment. Has DOD done any net 

assessments of the cyber domain at this particular point in time? 

Secretary WORK. Well, as you know, sir, we just had a leadership 

change in the Office of Net Assessment [ONA]. It reflects Secretary 

Carter’s very strong support of that office in providing independent 

assessments to him and I. Jim Baker, who is the new director, has 

just gotten in and is going to come back in. Cybersecurity and 

cyber is at the very top of our list, but there are many, many other 

strategic challenges, as you know. 

This one is going to be one that I believe ONA is going to help 

us on, but I know of nothing at this point as far as an ongoing assessment, but we expect to be able to start asking Mr. Baker. 

Mr. FORBES. And that is not a criticism; it is an encouragement. 

As the chairman talks about net assessment, if we haven’t done a 

net assessment of that, it is kind of difficult to know where we are. 

So I think we would just encourage, perhaps, the Department, if 

it can, to do what it can to have that net assessment done, and because I do think it helps us in determining what our strategies are 

going to be. 

The second part of that is I know you have worked very, very 

hard and very, very well on a third offset strategy. Do you expect 

that cyber will be a part of that third offset strategy? 

Secretary WORK. Absolutely. We assume that the future will be 

an extremely highly contested cyber and electronic warfare environment. So no matter what strategy we have, that kind of is the 

underlying baseline that we assume we must be able to contend 

with. 

There are a lot of questions on whether or not—many people say, 

well, if you go to a more network force, are you going to be able 

to have the certainty that you will have the networks when you 

need them? Will you have the confidence? So it will be absolutely 

critical to the third offset, yes. 

Mr. FORBES. And, once again, just an encouragement, the net assessment often really helps us inform what we are doing, that having that net assessment done would be, I think, very helpful. 
14 

Admiral Rogers, do you think we need to leverage a wider range 

of tools, like sanctions, or diplomacy, criminal proceedings, to deter 

cyberattacks with the threat of punishment? And can you tell us 

a little bit more about what options you think would be most effective at imposing costs upon perpetrators? 

Chairman Wilson and I, for example, have introduced legislation 

calling for targeted economic sanctions, but I am not asking you to 

address that bill—— 

Admiral ROGERS. Right. 

Mr. FORBES. But what else? What do we have? What else do we 

need, in your opinion? 

Admiral ROGERS. That has been part of our strategy to date, that 

just because someone comes at us in a cyber domain doesn’t mean 

the response has to be primarily or purely back in that same arena, 

if you will. 

You see that reflected in the response to the attack on Sony, for 

example, where we publicly acknowledged the event. We publicly 

attributed the event. And we talked about an initial set of actions 

we are going to take in response. In this case, it was economic 

sanctions. And then the President also talked about and we will 

take additional action if that is required, we believe, at the time 

and place of our choosing. 

We have used the legal framework within the last year where we 

have indicted individuals of foreign states, individual actors, we 

have indicted them. We have done the economic piece. There is a 

broad range of options that are ongoing with law enforcement, 

what the FBI, for example, does every day today. 

Mr. FORBES. I hate to interrupt you, but I only have—— 

Admiral ROGERS. Go ahead. 

Mr. FORBES [continuing]. 50 seconds, and I would just like to ask 

you this. Secretary Work said that we have not been as effective 

up to date as we would like to be. Fair. Again, no criticism, just 

an observation. 

What do you attribute that to? Is it our lack of willingness to use 

the tools we have, or does this committee need to help you get more 

tools? What would you say is your assessment of how we make that 

more effective? 

Admiral ROGERS. I mean, I think clearly there is a broad range 

of tools available to the Nation to include cyber options. One of my 

particular responsibilities is to be able to generate cyber options so 

that the Secretary has options to tee up. We are in the relatively 

early stages of that journey, but we are on that journey, and we 

have developed some levels of capabilities already. I am not going 

to get into specifics. 

I think the biggest challenge in some ways is just time. I mean, 

we are in the very early stages of this, and if you look at, for example—— 

Mr. FORBES. Speaking of time, my time is up, but if you don’t 

mind, we would submit some questions on the record. 

Admiral ROGERS. Okay. 

Mr. FORBES. And maybe you can respond back. 

Admiral ROGERS. Be glad to. 

Mr. FORBES. With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And, with that, I yield back. 
15 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Rhode Island, who has been a leader in this 

area for some time, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank you and the ranking member, as well as Chairman Wilson, for the time and attention that you and the committee 

have put into focussing on cyber. 

And, Mr. Secretary, and Admiral, and Mr. Halvorsen, we thank 

you for your testimony here today. 

I think that the discussion we have been having on imposing 

costs on our enemies and adversaries is critically important, and I 

am not going to ask a question on this today, but I will say that 

I know that the committee and certainly I am going to pay a lot 

of attention on this. We are looking for specifics about what those 

costs being imposed on our enemies and adversaries will be. 

I know the American people are looking for answers on this because right now, up until now, our enemies, adversaries have been 

eating our lunch for a long time, especially when it comes to cyber 

espionage, especially when it comes to things like defense contractors over the years. 

I know we have gotten better, and we have had the DIB [defense 

industrial base] pilot in place now, and the follow-on program that 

has done a better job of defending our defense contractors and the 

like, but imposing costs on our enemies and adversaries has to be 

an important part of the equation, and they have to know what it 

is. I know some of our responses may be classified, but others we 

need to make public so that our enemies know, our adversaries 

know that they can’t operate with impunity, which is what really 

is happening right now. It is like the Wild West out there, and they 

are on the better side of the equation. We have got to flip that so 

we have better outcomes on our side. 

So let me just turn to another topic. Do you believe—and Mr. 

Secretary, we will start with you—that there is an effective accountability mechanism in place for reported cybersecurity 

breaches at defense contractors? And could you describe to us the 

process by which contractors are held accountable? 

Secretary WORK. Congressman, I do believe we have an effective 

means. We are getting better. We have established our own cyber 

scorecard. This has been one of CIO Halvorsen’s top jobs, so I 

would ask him to answer the question with more specifics. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Thank you, sir. As you mentioned, sir, we actually have improved the DIB process, which brings and gives the 

companies better ability to share data with us. It protects them 

and gives them some protection when they share that data with us. 

That has been very successful. 

We have also improved our ability working with industry to look 

at the supply chain, risk management. I won’t get into everything 

we have done there, but what basically done is we are sharing it, 

and we are putting some systems in place with industry to be able 

to see that data better. 

We have now included working very much with industry to include now language that is in all IT [information technology] and 

cyber contracts that requires certain levels of security and reporting. All of those things are beginning to show results, and one way 
16 

that we impose costs on them is to raise our basic level of cyber 

defense and make them play much higher to play the game. The 

things we are doing I believe we are now starting to see some effects in that area about who isn’t playing as much anymore and 

what they are having to pay to play. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. So I have been examining the practices and techniques that the financial sector is using to determine 

and address the cyber risk of their contractors and vendors, and in 

many ways, they are way ahead of what the government is doing. 

To what degree have you cribbed from civilian sector best practices? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Sir, very much so, and I would say that we 

share a lot. In the financial sector, in particular, they have just 

published some new standards about what they expect from their 

vendors. If you looked at what they wrote and you looked at what 

we wrote in our ours, they are very similar. That was actually a 

fairly collaborative effort with the financial industry. 

We are also doing that with other segments of industry, with the 

logistics companies and other things. So we are cribbing a lot from 

industry. I spend a lot of time on our mobility policy. We will see, 

as that comes out, that will be completely again written with industry playing right from the beginning to help us get those pieces 

right so that we get the advantage of effectiveness and efficiency 

while we are using industry practices to raise the level of security. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Can you describe for us the Department’s progress on the creation of persistent training environments of the 

type and scale necessary to conduct group and collective training, 

rehearse missions at the unit level, as well as integrate and exercise the full spectrum of national, state, local, and private sector 

capabilities? 

Admiral ROGERS. So we identified that as a core enabler for us 

to build the vision, actually create the capability we think we need. 

In fact, this is one I actually—Deputy Secretary Work and I 

worked directly on this—and where I said: Hey, boss, I could use 

some more help here in fiscal year 2015. He was kind enough to 

generate additional funds for us. We have created a capability 

down in Suffolk, Virginia. In fact, we have been using it now every 

year with the Guard and interagency to look at how we can model 

different scenarios where DOD would be applying the capabilities 

to support critical infrastructure. 

In addition, we generated the capability at the Fort Meade area 

that we can increasingly pour it out across the framework for us. 

This has been a big investment area. You see it on the 2016 budget 

as well. We thank you for your support for that. 

Secretary WORK. In our PB17 [President’s budget 2017] build, 

Congressman, Secretary Carter has again defense of the networks 

is number one. Improving training is right up there. So this is 

going to have a very, very high level of attention from the top 

down. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you all. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

As I mentioned to our witnesses earlier, Mr. Smith and I have 

to go testify ourselves in front of the Rules Committee, so I am 
17 

pleased to yield the chair—and yield for questions he may submit— 

to the chairman of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON [presiding]. And ladies and gentlemen, it is the 

unique situation where I have just been recognized and I get to 

preside simultaneously. But it really gives me an opportunity to 

thank Chairman Mac Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith for 

their planning this week, cyber week. It is really a recognition for 

our three witnesses how important what you are doing, protecting 

American families. And so I am very grateful we had a hearing 

yesterday on cyber threats to American families, our national defense. 

We have this hearing. Later this afternoon, we have a briefing. 

I want the American people to know that we have got really good 

people, like Congressman Jim Langevin, all the way from Rhode Island, who is the ranking member of the Emerging Threats Subcommittee. This really is a bipartisan issue that we face of great 

concern of attacks on our government, on private businesses, on 

American citizens, and what you are doing is so important. We 

have also got extraordinary staff, people who are here working on 

these issues. 

And, again, each one of you, in your capacity, are making such 

a difference, and we look forward to working with you in the future. In particular, Secretary Work, during the cyber hearing yesterday and the chairman mentioned in his opening statement about 

the concept and proposal of hack-back; for example, when a private 

company takes retaliation into their own hands and hacks back at 

someone who has attacked our networks or systems. Can you outline concerns that you have? And is hack-back inherently a government function that only the government should do? Or is there a 

private role? 

Secretary WORK. Well, this is a very, very important issue for us 

because cyberattacks often have second and third and fourth order 

of consequences that we really have to understand, that they may 

cause escalation that were unintended. So this is an extremely important policy question for us as a nation to grapple with. 

Admiral Rogers deals with this on a daily basis, and I would ask 

him to provide some specifics. 

Admiral ROGERS. So I not only acknowledge the policy complications, but I also try to point out, at an operational level, we have 

so many actors in this domain already, adding more only complicates things. 

The second and third order effects, as the Secretary has outlined, 

are of significant concern. And so I have, from my perspective, 

urged be very careful about going down this road because I don’t 

think it is one that we truly understand. And from my perspective, 

the potential to further complicate an already complicated situation 

is very significant here. 

Mr. WILSON. And as complicated as it is, I am just so hopeful 

that with the expertise that you have, to me, it would be a deterrence with some level of hack-back. And so I hope this is pursued 

and the capable people that you are and that you have working 

with you, I can’t wait to hear of their capabilities as to deterrence, 

stopping hacking on American families. 
18 

And, Mr. Halvorsen, the Department recently issued a new manual for the defense support of civil authorities, which for the first 

time addresses cybersecurity related incidents. Could you discuss 

how DOD gets a request for such support, especially if it might be 

coming from a State or local agency? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Yes, sir. As the manual lays out, there are some 

formal processes we would go through with that, but one of the 

things I want to stress is the informal processes that we have put 

in place. We have now scheduled routine meetings with industry 

CISOs [chief information security officers]. My CISO, Richard Hale, 

who you will, I think, hear from later today in a closed hearing— 

had scheduled meetings with their security officers, both officially 

and unofficially. So we are sharing that data. We are moving forward to be able to give them some of our data quicker. 

Mike’s work has been superb in being able to lower the classification levels of data so that we can share that much quicker with industry and accept theirs in a similar fashion. So I think all of those 

things plus what is in the manual are adding to our—all of us, industry and the government’s—collection of data and what I will 

call operational intelligence that we can use to better security. 

Admiral ROGERS. And I would also add, this is an issue where 

we collaborate very closely between the Northern Command commander, U.S. Cyber Command, the Department of Homeland Security, the Guard and Reserve, the FBI, about how can we make sure 

that we are most efficient about how we are going to apply DOD 

capacity within the cyber arena within the broader defense support 

to civil authority construct because I am trying to make sure, can 

we use that existing framework to the maximum extent possible as 

opposed to trying to create something new, something totally complex in the cyber arena? 

Mr. WILSON. Admiral, thank you for being—pitching in. I want 

you to know, as a very grateful Navy dad, with three sons in the 

Army Guard, but I am very grateful for your service and naval 

service in general. 

Secretary Work, in your testimony you stated, quote: ‘‘The Iranian actors have been implicated in the 2012, 2013 attacks against 

U.S. financial institutions and in February 2014, last year, cyberattack on the Las Vegas Sands Casino.’’ 

What economic sanctions or legal actions resulted from this activity? Are they being maintained? 

Secretary WORK. Sir, I am going to have to take that for the 

record. I don’t know exactly what sanctions the DDOS [distributed 

denial of service] attack that you referred to against the financial 

services was attributed to Iran, as well as the Sands Casino, as you 

said. I am going to have to get back to you and say exactly what 

we did as a result of those two attacks, but Mike might know. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 73.] 

Admiral ROGERS. No specific sanctions tied to those each individual discrete events. It is clearly a broader discussion about what 

is acceptable, what is not acceptable. We have seen a change in behavior. The activity that we had seen previously directed against 

financial Websites, for example, has decreased, in part, I think, because of the broader, very public discussion we were having in 
19 

which we were acknowledging the activity, and we were partnering 

between the government and the financial sector to see what we 

could do to work the resiliency piece here to preclude the Iranian’s 

ability to actually penetrate, which, knock on wood, we were successful with. 

Mr. WILSON. And, again, thank each of you. 

We now proceed to Mr. Larsen of Washington State. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Any of you can answer this question. I am curious, though. Are 

we still exploring what the outer limits of what constitutes the 

equivalent of a physical kinetic attack against the U.S. when we 

are looking at cyberattacks? We still know what would be the 

equivalent kind of cyberattack that would warrant the kind of and 

size of response that we might do if there was a physical kinetic 

attack against the U.S.? We exploring the outer limits still? 

Secretary WORK. Well, we defined an event of significant consequence, it has to include either a loss of life; significant damage 

to property; serious adverse U.S. foreign policy implications or consequences; or serious economic impact. Now, that is a broad statement, and each of them have to be addressed as an individual act, 

and that is why there is no established red line on what we would 

say this constitutes a physical attack. 

The question we are often asked is, when does a cyberattack trigger an act of war? And each of those would be discussed in turn, 

depending on the type of attack and what its consequences were. 

As of this point, we have not assessed that any particular attack 

on us has constituted an act of war. 

Mr. LARSEN. Can you—and Admiral, you addressed this a little 

bit—be more specific about the title 10 versus title 32 responsibilities in working with the National Guard or even going beyond 

that, working with either national, State, or local law enforcement? 

What specific criteria do you use to make that distinction? 

Admiral ROGERS. For me, among the things I look at our scope 

of the activity we are dealing with, the nature of the event that we 

are trying to deal with, capacity that exists within the title 10 

arena versus in the title 32. Are there specific knowledge or unique 

insights that, for example, a particular Guard structure might have 

that are really well tailored to deal with this specific issue? 

Again, it is a case-by-case basis. The touchstone, though, I have 

tried to maintain with my Guard teammates and the States is we 

need one integrated workforce between the Active and the Reserve 

Component, trained to the same standard using the same basic 

scheme of maneuver so that we can use these capabilities interchangeably. That maximizes our flexibility as a Department, and 

it gives us a broad range of options in terms of how we employ the 

capability. 

Mr. LARSEN. And then are you making that largely permanent? 

At some point in the future, you have moved on to something else, 

and someone comes in behind you? So is this still evolving, how you 

are trying to establish these relationships as they apply to cyber, 

or are these going to be largely permanent? Will you be changing 

the story? 

Admiral ROGERS. Right. I think they will be largely permanent. 

I feel pretty good that we have done the foundational work, if you 
20 

will, broadly. I always remind people: Remember, no plan ever survives contact. And the broad framework we are going to acknowledge as we get into this, we are likely to see things we hadn’t anticipated, and we have got to be flexible and be willing to change 

as we need to given the specifics of whatever particular event it is 

that we are dealing with. 

But I would compliment the Guard and the Reserve for the way 

we have partnered on developing the cyber capability within the 

Department. It hasn’t been adversarial at all. It has been a great 

team. 

Secretary WORK. In fact, I would like to jump in on that, sir. We 

work very closely with the Council of Governors. I would like to 

give them a shout out. We have been dealing with this on how to 

build up cyber capacity in the Guard and Reserve. We are building 

right now toward about 2,000 Guard and Reserves that are associated with this. And what we are doing right now is trying to work 

out the policy on what our folks can do in terms of coordination, 

training, advising, and assist under title 32 and title 10 authorities. 

That is actually—the policy—is working well. We are working 

well with the Governors, and we believe that this is going to be a 

great new story for the Nation. 

Mr. LARSEN. Right, that is nice. In my last few moments here, 

I have a question. We talked about defensive networks—defense of 

networks, that is—talked about resilience, denial, and the whole 

deterrence issue, but this issue of hybrid warfare, of course, has 

come up and I am curious about what steps you are taking to incorporate in a U.S. response or even in NATO’s [North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization’s] response and the role CYBERCOM plays in this in 

incorporating a responsive capability within this hybrid warfare 

concept that we hear really a lot out of General Breedlove. 

Admiral ROGERS. So, it is a concept—we are partnering both 

with General Breedlove at EUCOM [European Command] as well 

as in his NATO role as the Supreme Allied Commander, and it also 

highlights the work that Special Operations Command, that General Votel’s team are doing in this regard. In fact, I was just down 

in Tampa about 10 days ago. This was part of our broad discussion 

about how do we integrate the full range of capabilities within the 

Department as we are trying to respond to an evolving world 

around us? 

I think we are starting to have some good conversations in a 

good broad way ahead within the Department. The international 

framework for this is little more difficult. I think it is fair to say 

not as far as advanced, for example, with us and NATO. It is an 

area we have talked about we have got to work on. 

Mr. LARSEN. My time is up. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Larsen. 

We now proceed to Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciated your comments to earlier questions that were directed from Congresswoman Susan Davis, but I would like to follow 

up and build on that. This concerns recruiting and retaining top 

talent. So what are your efforts to—and this is for you, Admiral 
21 

Rogers, in particular—what are your efforts to develop a unique 

cyber career track for those in the military? 

Admiral ROGERS. So, services have the responsibility for man, 

train, and equip within our Department, in terms of they generate 

the capacity I employ then as the joint commander. In the cyber 

arena, though, one of the things that has been a real strength is 

the joint world and the services have been totally integrated as to 

how we are going to develop this, what are the standards, what are 

the skills, how do we create that workforce. And that is what I did, 

in fact, in my last job. I am very comfortable with how each service 

has tried to create a career path that enables us to extend over an 

entire career both this capability as well as generate the insights 

we need in the workforce. I think that is a big change for us over 

the last 5, 10 years. I think it is a real strength for the future. It 

is not an area that I look at now and I go: Wow, I have real heavy 

concerns there. I think we have got a good way ahead and a good 

broad vision, and the capacity and the capability of that workforce, 

I have yet to run in—knock on wood, with my luck, this will happen tomorrow—but I have not yet run into a scenario where we 

didn’t have the level of knowledge. 

The challenge has been I might have had a handful of people 

with the right level of knowledge, but we had people with the 

knowledge. I have got to build that capacity out more so we have 

got more of it, if you will. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay, well, I appreciate hearing that and that is 

really encouraging, so thank you. 

And Secretary Work, the Department has recently floated a number of new civilian and military personnel reforms, compensation, 

retirement, et cetera. How will some of these reforms affect the 

cyber workforce? 

Secretary WORK. Well, I actually was going to try to jump in here 

because this is a huge priority for Secretary Carter. He came into 

the Department believing that over time we have created these 

barriers for service in our government. And he wants to really, as 

he talks, burrow tunnels through these barriers or widen the aperture. And he uses cyber as an example of new ways in which we 

might bring people into the government and allow them to serve 

for a while, then go back out into the civilian workforce, and come 

back in. And so he has challenged us and the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Personnel Readiness, Brad Carson, on this force of the 

future to say: How can we make sure that in areas like cyber, you 

know, space, electronic warfare, we have more permeability in the 

Department to make sure that we are getting the best ideas from 

outside the Department? 

I don’t have any specifics to give you right now because they are 

in the process of going through a deliberative, ‘‘Which ideas are 

good?’’ But we are right with the intent of your question to improve 

the ways in which people can come in and out of our government 

service because, as Mr. Halvorsen said, this is an exciting mission 

for many, many people. And maybe they don’t want to make a 30- 

year government career, but if they had a chance to help Admiral 

Rogers for a 2- or 3-year period, they are all in. So we have to improve the way to do that. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay, thank you. 
22 

And, Mr. Halvorsen, do you have anything to add to what has 

already been said? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. No. I just echo all of the same comments. 

And while we are waiting for some of that to be staffed, you 

heard we are moving forward on some pilot programs to bring industry into the government, for us to put, for the first time, civilians out in industry. Those pilots are moving very well, and as we 

have used those to inform Brad in his work, I think you will see 

some great things coming out of this. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, I thank you for your answers. And most of 

all, thank you for the great work that you are doing. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Lamborn. 

We now proceed to Congresswoman Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts. 

Ms. TSONGAS. Thank you all for being here. It is obviously a topic 

of great importance. And I think, as you said, so much of this is 

about personnel, really being able to attract the people and keep 

the people who have the skill set and the commitment to thinking 

this through because it is not easy stuff—that is for sure—at all. 

And I gather from the testimony I have heard that there is a fair 

amount of comfort level with what DOD and the military services 

have been able to do to put in place appropriate means of training, 

hiring, and then compensating, even though you have said you may 

have to come back to us in the future. 

But you also commented that this is sort of an interagency effort 

and you are working with the Department of Homeland Security, 

law enforcement, the FBI, the Intelligence Community. How much 

sharing across those borders is taking place in terms of the skill 

set that you need in each of those aspects of this effort and how 

comfortable are you with the ways in which you are working together and how they are responding to the challenges they face in 

terms of personnel? 

Admiral ROGERS. I mean, I would argue very well. 

For example, this is one I have personally sat down with the director of the FBI and talked about: Hey, are there things we could 

be doing together? It is a conversation I have had with the leadership at Homeland Security. It is a conversation, quite frankly, I 

have also had with the private sector, where I have argued: We are 

both competing for the same pool. What works for you? What might 

we be able to do differently? Are there ways, as you have heard 

previously, can we partner? 

I would make just one slight twist because this is a point I wanted to make today. I would tell you, on the opposite side, though, 

the single greatest perturbation I have experienced within my 

workforce in 18 months has been even the hint of a shutdown. In 

the last week, I have had more agitation out of the workforce arguing this would be the second time in 2 years. And we are even having this discussion—hey, even if we don’t shut down the government, just the fact that we are even getting this close, the workforce is very open with us about, ‘‘I am not so sure I want to be 

part of an organization where there is this lack of control, and I 

can’t count on stability.’’ That really concerns me because I can’t 

overcome that. 
23 

Ms. TSONGAS. Secretary Work, do you have any—— 

Secretary WORK. Well, this is a very competitive field, as the admiral said. We are building up a total of 133 cyber teams in the 

Cyber Mission Force. Some are focused on protection of the networks. They are called Cyber Protection Teams. Some are focused 

on national infrastructure protection. They are called the National 

Mission Teams. Then we have teams that are supporting our combatant commanders. We want to build to a total of 133 of these 

teams. It is going to be about 6,200 Active Duty military, civilians, 

and in some special instances, contractors, and we won’t get there 

until 2018. So we are in the process of building these. 

And this is a very competitive space. We are on track. We are 

doing well in our recruitment. But as Admiral Rogers says, any 

hints of shutdown or sequestration, that will really set us back. So 

we think we have got a good mission that people want to participate in, but we are not where we need to be yet, Congresswoman, 

and we still have until 2018 to build up the force to where we just 

think is the minimum necessary to do our missions. 

Ms. TSONGAS. You know, I serve on the board of one of the service academies, the board of visitors of one of the service academies. 

And I know in our discussions, we have heard that it has been difficult to attract young airmen, in this instance, to the cyber field 

because they come into the academy with a particular idea in mind 

of where they want to spend their time. And so it is not always as 

simple as we would like to think, given the extraordinary challenge. 

But I have another question as well. You know, the Department 

has shown its commitment to leveraging private sector cyber innovation, and we have heard about that here today. I commend Secretary Carter with making his way out to Silicon Valley to create 

some presence there, a satellite campus there, to have a way in 

which to interact more easily with that community. And I just wonder, how will you expand that program and look to other parts of 

the country where you have a deep bench of cyber activists, cyber 

innovators, cyber experts? 

Secretary WORK. Well, if you are referring, Congresswoman, to 

the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental [DIUx]—and it is an experimental unit. We want to see how we can interact with the private sector in the best way. So, for example, one of our ideas was 

to bring people back to the Pentagon and show them what we are 

doing. And they said: No, really what we want to do is go to the 

field and see what your airmen, soldiers, marines, and sailors, 

what do they do? We want to go on ships. We want to see what 

their problems are. We want to help them. 

So once we do the lessons learned there, we expect that to be 

successful, and it will become a permanent unit. And then where 

would we expand? We would go to other innovation centers 

throughout the country, perhaps Boston. There are different places. 

And Mr. Halvorsen has been helping us to think through this also. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. You know, as the Secretary went out to Silicon 

Valley, we had also taken a CIO team to Silicon Valley. In December, we are doing a similar thing in Boston and New York. And not 

just waiting for that, we have hosted just recently a group down 

from Boston and New York, both some of the more mature cyber 
24 

companies but also a group of some of the innovative companies. 

I think what we are trying to do with DIUx is really take what Silicon Valley stands for, not the geographic location, and make 

sure—and the Secretary is very clear in his guidance—so is 

DEPSECDEF [Deputy Secretary of Defense]—to us to: Hey, it is 

more about the concept of innovation. Reach to wherever that is, 

and it is not just in Silicon Valley. So you will see us in the next 

couple of months spend more attention in the Northeast and, 

frankly, in the Southwest sector. 

Ms. TSONGAS. There is really no substitute for physical presence 

and the kind of physical interaction, day-to-day interaction that 

can take place. Thank you. 

My time is up. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Ms. Tsongas. 

We now proceed to Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

At Redstone Arsenal, next to Huntsville, Alabama, the Army is 

establishing a cyber campus within the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center, also known as 

AMRDEC. This campus consists of qualified cyber personnel and 

facilities to provide world-class cybersecurity support to aviation 

missile systems by using cutting-edge research and development of 

cybersecurity solutions to challenges associated with emerging and 

legacy technologies. 

The AMRDEC cyber campus coordinates cyber activities with industry, academia, and government partners. Although an Army 

asset, it is uniquely positioned to integrate the Department of 

Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Space and Missile Defense Command, and the defense industrial base. Additionally, it can provide deep technical expertise and reduce the risk of 

cyber threats posed as it relates to hardware, software, firmware, 

networks test and evaluation, modeling simulations, forensics, industrial control systems, supervisory control, and data acquisition 

systems. With that as a backdrop—and these questions are for 

each of you—How does the Army’s vision with AMRDEC integrate 

with the Department of Defense’s overall cyber strategy? 

Secretary WORK. Well, as Admiral Rogers said, each of the services are developing cyber skills within each of the—under their title 

10 responsibilities. And this is just one reflection of many, many, 

many such organizations that are being set up. The Air Force has 

units down in San Antonio. 

And so I would ask Admiral Rogers to give you more specifics, 

but each of these are going to have specific skills. In this case, the 

one that you have talked about, Congressman, really focuses on the 

aviation systems of the Army and how they can make sure that 

they are not vulnerable to cyberattack, but they develop other 

skills, too. 

Admiral ROGERS. So every service, as the Secretary indicated, is 

developing a similar kind of capability, similar kinds of relationships. Army has chosen to really harness the capability resident at 

Redstone in the northern Alabama area. The positive side thing for 

me is we have got a good, strong collaboration across the services 

as to who is doing what and where. The question I think increasingly for us over time is, as we get more experience, do we need 
25 

to increase investments in certain areas where we are really seeing 

strong results versus other areas where perhaps it hasn’t played 

out as well as we would like? And we are going to generate more 

insights in that over time. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you. 

Mr. Halvorsen, would you like to add anything? 

Mr. HALVORSEN [continuing]. The policy absolutely talks about 

how we do better with industry, and part of what that unit is doing 

is bringing in industry in the area, too, to be part of the solution 

to the problem. So I think they are perfectly aligned with what 

they said and what was in the policy. 

Mr. BROOKS. Okay, a followup question. Is there a consolidated 

effort to ensure cyber centers, such as the one at Redstone, are 

interconnected with other services and Department of Defense capabilities to properly leverage knowledge sets and not create stovepipes of information or efforts? 

Admiral ROGERS. I don’t know that we have a formal—I know 

there is regular analytic and collaborative venues where they all 

get together. I participate and my team participates in some of 

those. I don’t know that there is a formal process, if you will. I try 

to synchronize that at my level with each of the service components 

that work for me about: Hey, we have got to look at ourselves as 

one integrated enterprise here, guys, because we have got to maximize effectiveness and efficiency because there are more requirements than there is money and time, so it is all about, how do we 

maximize outputs? 

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Work. 

Secretary WORK. Sir, I don’t believe there is a formal program 

right now. We look at it more in terms of function. So, right now, 

I can tell you in terms of defense of networks, everything is on the 

same playing field. We all have the same score cards. We all grade 

ourselves exactly the same. But to your specific question on whether or not we have a formal program, that is something I will need 

to go back and research and say—it sounds like a good idea. I just 

don’t know exactly how we would implement it yet. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 74.] 

Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Halvorsen. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Like Secretary Work said, we will have to go 

check and see. It sounds intriguing. 

Mr. BROOKS. Thank you, gentlemen, for your insight. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. 

We now proceed to Congressman O’Rourke of Texas. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Work, you were talking about the three basic tenets of 

deterrence. And the first two, denial and resilience, I understand 

pretty well. There have been a number of questions about the third 

one, which is cost imposition. And I am interested in knowing how 

we communicate or advertise the consequences of cyberattacks to 

potential adversaries, and to the degree that you can talk about it, 

how has that changed their behavior? And how have some of the 

consequences that we have imposed thus far changed their behav-
26 

ior? In other words, how have we done on that third tenet, on cost 

imposition? 

Secretary WORK. The first is to have a strong policy statement 

that we will respond at a time, place, and manner of our choosing. 

And then we have to communicate, primarily with state actors. I 

think Admiral Rogers said yesterday, we are pretty good at stopping 99.5 percent of the attacks, you know, getting rid of the basic 

hacker, but it is the state adversaries that pose the biggest challenge. 

And I would just like to weave in—I think the chairman mentioned the Xi and—President Obama and President Xi, the cyber 

agreement. And that came about from intensive discussions with 

the Government of China saying: This behavior is unacceptable, 

and we have got to come to grips with it. So there were four specific aspects of what I would consider this, call it a confidencebuilding measure. 

The first one is that we have to have timely response for information and assistance if we go to China and say: Hey, there is an 

actor inside China that is conducting these activities. We have 

agreed to share that information. Both the United States and 

China have agreed that they will not knowingly conduct cyberrelated theft of intellectual property for commercial gain. We are 

making common effort to develop these norms of state, norms of behavior, which we have never done before. And then we agreed to 

a high-level joint dialogue. 

Now, people say: Whoa, there is no enforcement mechanism. 

But it is a confidence-building measure, and it is the first time 

that the President of China has said: I will commit my government 

to these things. 

We believe it is very, very significant and could lead to this. And 

it came about from high-level dialogue where we were saying: We 

find your behavior unacceptable. And we do have options. But how 

can we work this out? 

So I believe in the Sony case, we attributed. We did sanctions. 

I believe that those types of activities will prove that the United 

States is very serious about this and may lead to these better 

norms of behavior between nation-states. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I think that is the hope. What are you actually 

seeing in terms of changed behaviors? I understand the agreement, 

which is important, and the statements of intent. What are you 

seeing in terms of number and severity of intrusions or cyberattacks following, you know, letting our adversaries know that we 

will choose the place and time of our response? And having responded in some of these cases, what has that done? 

Admiral ROGERS. So we are in an unclassified forum, but in 

broad terms—— 

Mr. O’ROURKE. To the degree you can. 

Admiral ROGERS [continuing]. You haven’t seen the North Koreans attempt to engage in another offensive act against the U.S. infrastructure since November of 2014, and the aftermath of our economic sanctions and very public attribution and discussion. I would 

argue, in at least the denial-of-service activity we saw the Iranians, 

for example, doing back in the 2012, 2013 timeframe, we have not 

observed that of late. I would argue for other nation-states, the im-
27 

pact to date has been—I am not seeing significant changes. Again, 

it is early with respect to the PRC [People’s Republic of China]. We 

need to see how this commitment plays out over time, and trust 

me, we will be paying great attention to how this commitment 

plays out over time. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I think that is something that I and perhaps 

other members of the committee would be interested in receiving 

a briefing on going forward, just to look at how behaviors are 

changing and whether that third tenet of ensuring that our adversaries understand the consequences and costs of these kinds of attacks, making sure that that is really working. So I appreciate your 

answers. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. 

We now proceed to Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Rogers, I have a question. You said earlier that Russia 

is a peer competitor in terms of our cyber technology and the cyber 

threats that are out there, and I guess I am interested to see what 

your perspective is. I am just sitting here and I have been watching 

through the course of this hearing the Russian bombers that let 

loose today in Syria with 1-hour notice to our generals in Baghdad 

and striking non-ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] targets. 

And I think this is a reprehensible activity that is happening 

today, and I have many questions as to how we ended up here. 

But I am curious from you, with this development today of an 

overaggressive Russia, how in the world do we go forward with 

talking about peer competitors and sharing intel information and 

trusting anything that comes from Putin in Russia? 

Admiral ROGERS. Well, clearly, your point is much broader than 

the cyber arena that I am talking about. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. I think it is completely related. 

Admiral ROGERS. Okay, I didn’t say it was unrelated. I said it 

was broader. One of the points I try to make is you have to remember that cyber happens in a broader strategic context, so it is important that we understand the broader strategic context. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Would there not be an element of trust that 

would have to prevail here when we just literally saw what happened this morning, and for many of us that have sat here on this 

committee for a long time, saw a red line that was violated and not 

upheld in Syria. We have seen all of these different gaps with all 

of these different countries around the world with an administration that seems to not have any kind of a strategy or a contiguous 

plan. How would we take a step forward today? I know you are 

looking at the broad context—or you are talking about the broad 

context, but I don’t understand the gap that is going to be there— 

that has already been there, but the gap that is going to continue 

to emerge today, how in the world do we breach that and how in 

the world do we say to the American people with all seriousness 

and looking our constituents in the eyes that we have their back 

and that we are looking out for the security of the United States 

of America and our allies and we are watching Vladimir Putin 

come right into the Middle East right next to our cohort and friend 

that we want to protect, Israel—does that not change the equation 
28 

of trusting or having any kind of semblance of trust with Putin and 

Russia? 

Admiral ROGERS. Well, I would only argue this latest issue fits 

in a broader context with the Ukraine and others. This is not a 

new phenomenon in many ways with this particular actor. It is 

why we have been very direct with them. I know the Secretary has 

had conversations with his counterparts in the Russian framework. 

I have not had specific cyber discussions with them. I will say, one 

of the points I try to make in our internal discussions is: I am 

watching the Russians use cyber in an ever-increasingly aggressive 

way. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And would this not be a major alarm? This is 

alarming to me that he just talked to the President yesterday and 

evidently said, ‘‘Stay out of our airspace,’’ and we get 1 hour of 

warning. And they go in and they attack Syria. So now they are 

a main state player as we are screwing around in our country. We 

are fighting back and forth over all kinds of things right now. We 

just had the Pope here. And while America’s distraction is focused 

over here, it, seemingly, is that he is using a phenomenal window 

of opportunity to go in and be another major push in Syria. And 

the alarm, I think—not only for lawmakers today but for the citizens of our country that we are vowing to protect—is we have now 

watched him establish himself in Syria, in the Middle East. 

Secretary WORK. Obviously, as outlined by President Putin, he 

believes he is following his national interests. We are alarmed by 

what happened this morning. What was agreed by the two Presidents is that our militaries would talk so that we would deconflict 

operations. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. So have we not seen a failure between our President and President Putin if we were going to talk and try to avoid 

something like this? Because now he is there 1 hour, 1 hour of notice, with all of our forces over there, the allied forces, the NATO 

forces, the other nations that are fighting as well? I mean, would 

we not see this as a failure? 

Secretary WORK. I don’t believe it is a failure. I believe it is an 

aggressive action by Russia right now in advance of our discussions 

between our two militaries. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And are you confident that we have a strategy 

with the President of the United States that just met with Putin? 

Are you confident that those two leaders have a strategy and that 

we are holding up our end of the bargain? Are you confident that 

the administration is looking at this as, ‘‘Oh, well, we expected this 

to happen’’? I look at it as a gigantic breach because I represent 

three-quarters of a million people that are looking at their TVs 

right now like I am, and the official response from the Pentagon, 

‘‘taken aback by strikes.’’ I think we are all taken aback. Is there 

a strategy that was supposed to prevent this, or is our attitude 

now, ‘‘Well, we know they are going to do their things; we are just 

going to see at what point we are going to try to contain them’’? 

Secretary WORK. We have a disagreement on strategy. They 

want to be able to do military action first followed by a political 

agreement. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. They are doing military action. They have been 

doing military action. They encroach on the Ukraine, they are mak-
29 

ing headway through that whole Eastern European area. They 

have been doing military action, and today we are watching a live 

bombing, and from your perspective and the perspective of the administration, we expected that? The American people don’t. I don’t 

expect that. 

Secretary WORK. The Russians made clear that they would support the Assad regime with air strikes, and we made an agreement 

to have our militaries talk so that there would not be any problem 

between our interactions between our forces. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. You think 1 hour of notice is legitimate for two 

organizations and militaries that are talking? Obviously, talks 

broke down, and we got a last minute—so what is our response 

now? 

Secretary WORK. Well, you have me at a disadvantage, Congresswoman. I don’t know exactly what has happened over the last hour. 

We heard about the attacks this morning. They asked us to avoid 

the area where they would be operating. We continue to fly 

throughout Syria. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And we continue to talk. Are we continuing to 

talk to our Russian counter-opponents? 

Secretary WORK. We have agreed for our militaries to meet, and 

that meeting just simply has not occurred. It was an agreement between the two Presidents just a couple of days ago. So we are trying to find out where we will meet, where it will be, who—— 

Mrs. WALORSKI. Would you not agree this is a crisis because for 

the first time, they have now entered the Middle East. And for the 

first time, we now have watched the broadening of Putin’s powers, 

who was just here on the American soil right next to a mess, a hotbed of war, and right next to our dear ally Israel. Have we not now 

watched something elevate to the point that this is now a crisis because Russia has just now gone from their position, through the 

Ukraine, looking at Eastern Europe, and now has sufficiently landed themselves with a coalition inside of Syria? 

Secretary WORK. I do not believe it is a crisis. I believe it is a 

disagreement in strategy, and that is what we are trying to work 

out. 

Mrs. WALORSKI. And I respect that. I believe it is a crisis. I believe we have had a President with no foreign policy whatsoever. 

We have had red lines talked about and crossed. And this thing 

has played out all by itself, and now today here we are, back in 

a crisis, back on TV in front of every single American, wondering 

who in the world is defending our country? 

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you very much, Congresswoman Jackie 

Walorski. 

We now proceed to Mr. Takai. 

Mr. TAKAI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to rebalance and refocus to cyber strategy, if I may. 

A lot of my colleagues have asked about deterrence today, and this 

is something that I am also very concerned about after recent 

events that have been discussed. With the current threats to our 

cyber network, the need to discuss here today, including creating 

and maintaining a persistent training environment, development of 

a unified platform, and building the Joint Information Environ-
30 

ment to secure the DOD enterprise, the development of these priorities cannot only serve as a deterrent in their own right but will 

enable our CYBERCOM—our Cyber Mission Force readiness to be 

the best in the world. So, Admiral Rogers, where is DOD in allocating resources for these priorities? If you could address each one, 

again, persistent training environment, unified platform, and the 

Joint Information Environment. 

Admiral ROGERS. So persistent training environment is a program that we have put together. It will take us several years to 

finish. I think we are in the—fiscal year 2017 represents the third 

year of funding for it. We are working through the 2017 build now 

internally within the Department. Again, I sense strong support for 

this. I haven’t come to an issue yet where I am saying, ‘‘Oh, I have 

problems with the way ahead.’’ 

I think we have got a way ahead, and it seems to be working. 

JIE [Joint Information Environment], I will let Terry comment only 

because it has been a particular focus for him. 

Unified platform, a relatively new idea for us that, based on 5 

years of practical experience now as an organization, we think the 

Department needs to create a capability somewhat separate from 

NSA [National Security Agency], if you will, for us to execute operations. Unified platform is the program name we put together in 

terms of our ability to do that. Again, we really are starting that 

with the 2017 build. And it is an example to me of how, as we gain 

more experience, as we do this over time, we have got to continually reassess and ask ourselves: So are some of the assumptions 

that we made when we started, are they proving to be what we 

thought they were, or do we need to make changes? 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay, and the—— 

Admiral ROGERS. JIE, if you want to—— 

Mr. HALVORSEN. With respect to JIE, the first concrete action 

that becomes of that is the establishment of the Joint Regional Security Stacks [JRSS]. They are on track. They will be funded in 

2017, and they will be fully operational by the end of 2017. 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay. Thank you. I wanted to go back to the integration of personnel. I know the Secretary mentioned that, and I think 

you, Admiral, as well, I want to focus on defining where the role 

of the National Guard fits into the cyber strategy. I am a member 

of the Guard in Hawaii, and all of us here on this committee have 

constituents in the Guard. So can you touch upon some of the 

points on where the Guard can increase their role in the larger 

cyber mission? 

Secretary WORK. Let me just start by saying, our cyber force that 

we are building to as we discussed earlier, Congressman, is about 

6,200 Active and civilians and, in some special cases, contractors. 

Mr. TAKAI. Right. That is what you said. You didn’t mention National Guard when you said that. 

Secretary WORK. Two thousand—2,000—National Guard and Reserves on top of that. Some of them will be part of the cyber teams 

that I talked about, and others will be extra capacity that might 

be able to help the States. As I said, the Council of Governors and 

we have been working very, very closely together. Our policy shop 

is working through all of the aspects of what we can do under title 

32 and title 10 authorities in support of the States. But the Guard 
31 

and Reserve will be absolutely central to the Cyber Mission Force; 

about a quarter of the entire force, 6,200 in the Active side and another 2,000 on the Reserve and National Guard. So they are absolutely central. 

Admiral ROGERS. The only other comment I would make, and I 

say this, I am the son of a guardsman. My father was a member 

of the Illinois National Guard for 27 years. So, as a child, I 

watched him every day, every month, every summer participate in 

Guard activities. And I spent a lot of time playing in armories as 

a little boy every day with my father. 

Every service has used a slightly different construct. In the case 

of the Air Force, they are using the Guard and the Reserve to fill 

out a part, if you will, of the Active requirement for their share of 

the 6,200. In the case of the Army, they have decided that the 

Guard and the Reserve represent an opportunity to generate additional capacity over and above that dedicated 6,200 people. Clearly, 

Navy and Marine Corps don’t have a Guard construct. It is a little 

different for them. But as I have said, the discussions today have 

been very good. I think, as the Secretary said, we have got a way 

ahead in terms of how we are going to work our way though this, 

particularly this, quote, ‘‘additional capacity,’’ if you will, that the 

Guard is developing and partnering with the States about how we 

are going to view this as one integrated enterprise, as it were, so 

we are maximizing the capabilities that the Department and the 

States are investing in. 

Mr. TAKAI. You spoke earlier about the cyber teams and the 

number of teams that you are building. I understand that there 

may be, in fact, opportunities for these teams to be wholly Guard. 

You didn’t mention that today. So can you—— 

Admiral ROGERS. I said in the case of the Air Force, for example, 

a portion of their share of the 133, they, in fact, are creating a 

small number of teams that are wholly Guard. 

Mr. TAKAI. Okay. Great. And then one more question for the Secretary. How resilient are our military networks to cyberattacks, 

and how do you measure and qualify resilience? 

Secretary WORK. We are getting better, but we are not where we 

need to be. That is why Secretary Carter has said defense of our 

networks is absolutely job number one. Now, that will come 

through a whole lot of different things, as I said in my opening 

statement. First, get the network as defendable as possible. So the 

JIE that Terry Halvorsen talked about and the Joint Regional Security Stacks will take 1,000 defendable firewalls down to less than 

200. A whole bunch of different—I mean, the number of enclaves— 

and Terry can talk about this—will be dropped. 

So the first thing is to make your network with the surfaces, the 

fewer surfaces as possible and as defendable as possible. The second is to build up these teams so that is another big part. And the 

other one is to have a cyber scorecard, which is telling us exactly 

how well we are doing. And Mr. Halvorsen was the creator of the 

scorecard, and I would ask him to be able to tell you how we are 

going to track this. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. So cyber resiliency is actually a measure on the 

scorecard that we are actively developing. It will look—— 
32 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA [presiding]. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. 

The Chair now recognizes himself for questions. 

Secretary Work and Admiral Mike Rogers, good to meet you. Do 

you use telecommunications—and either one of you—telecommunications equipment manufactured by Huawei in your offices? 

Admiral ROGERS. I apologize. I didn’t hear the question. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Do you use telecommunications equipment manufactured by Huawei in your offices? 

Secretary WORK. In the office of the Secretary of Defense, absolutely not. And I know of no other—I don’t believe we operate in 

the Pentagon, any systems in the Pentagon. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Admiral Rogers? 

Admiral ROGERS. No. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Why? Why do you not use it? 

Admiral ROGERS. For us, I think it is a broader conscious decision as we look at supply chain and we look at potential 

vulnerabilities within the system, that it is a risk we felt was unacceptable. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Secretary Work? Agree with Admiral 

Rogers. What about your cleared defense contractors? Should they 

be using Huawei telecommunications equipment? 

Secretary WORK. I will have to take that for the record, sir. I 

know of no defense contractors that are using Huawei equipment, 

but I just don’t know. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 73.] 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Okay. 

Admiral. 

Admiral ROGERS. This is a broader departmental issue. I mean, 

we don’t, the contracts we have, we specify security standards that 

you have to meet. We specify the requirement to notify us. Again, 

I think we would have to take it as a question. I don’t know if the 

current language—and Terry may know—but I don’t know if the 

current language specifies specific vendors, if you will. You may or 

may not. I know in some of the national security systems, we are 

very specific about making that standard. In the nuclear and other 

areas, we are very explicit that that is not allowable. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Well, Secretary Work, I would appreciate if you would get back with me on whether you have any 

cleared defense contractors that are compelled to use Huawei telecommunications equipment. 

And, with that, my next question has to do with the nuclear enterprise review that recognized that Vietnam era Huey 1N helicopters that helped provide security for our ICBM [intercontinental 

ballistic missile] fields are woefully antiquated and inadequate. 

The NER [Nuclear Enterprise Review] said that we need to get 

new, modern helicopters into ICBM fields because after all, we are 

talking about nuclear weapons. 

Based on a meeting I had with the Air Force and the OSD [Office 

of the Secretary of Defense] a few weeks ago, I am very concerned 

that the Air Force acquisition approach is going to take 4 or more 

years to get these helicopters. Now, these are ICBM fields, and I 

had a hearing on this security issue and this came up, and it is 
33 

alarming, the concern that we are being told by the commanders 

about their security of these fields. What can you tell me about 

why we are looking at such a long period of time? 

Secretary WORK. Well, first of all, this is an extremely high priority, and we are dealing with it right now in PBR–17 [President’s 

budget request 2017]. Last year, the Air Force plan to replace those 

helicopters was to take their UH–60As, their old—excuse me, take 

UH–60As and upgrade them to UH–60Ls and it turned out that all 

of the As that were available in the force were just too old and 

tired. And it became cost prohibitive. And that is why the timing 

slid because now we will have to go and buy new-build UH–60Ms 

or whatever helicopter we decide, whether we decide whether we 

can do sole source or whether it has to be a competition. 

STRAT commander, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, 

Admiral Cecil Haney, has come in and said we cannot afford to 

wait for 4 years, and we are looking at a wide variety of measures 

to mitigate the problem until we can get these new helicopters 

built. It is a very high priority issue for us in this budget build, 

and I will be able to give you a little bit more information once we 

work through all of the different options before us. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Okay, well, I just want you to understand that I really believe that we should see an immediate reprogramming request for the fiscal year 2017 budget. 

And, with that, I will close by saying that now that the NDAA 

is about to be sent to the President, I would like to talk with you 

offline about our new engine to replace the RD–180 as soon as we 

can get a chance to privately. 

With that, I will yield back my time, and go to Ms. Speier for 

5 minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Speier. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. Speier. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your service to our country. You know, 

we are dealing with some very, very savvy actors in these various 

foreign countries that have been hacking into us. On the agreement 

with China, Mr. Work, you seemed somewhat elated by the agreement, and yet I have reason to be very skeptical about them complying with what they agreed to comply with. But, more importantly, I would like to ask you, what isn’t in the agreement that 

you would have wished was in the agreement? 

Secretary WORK. Well, I wouldn’t characterize my reaction as 

elation, Congresswoman, so much as I believe it is a very good first 

step. It is the first time that the President of China has committed 

himself and his country to address the issues that have been of 

such high concern to our government. So I consider that a very 

good first step. 

Ms. SPEIER. I understand that, but what wasn’t in the agreement? I have very limited time. So, please, if you would, answer 

the question. 

Secretary WORK. There were no enforcement mechanisms per se, 

and that, I think, is the key thing that people have pointed out. 

But, again, I believe this was a confidence-building measure. Now 

China is either going to prove that they are serious about this or 
34 

not, and then we can take actions as necessary if they prove not 

to follow through on their commitment. 

Ms. SPEIER. Now, the OPM hack was devastating, and it is clear 

that China did it. They denied it. It is also very clear that they now 

have very personal information about many persons with top secret 

status. And the phishing that just went on recently of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff’s unclassified email worries me a great deal. Whether it is Russia or China, access to that personal information is such 

that if they know who your family members are or who your nextdoor neighbor is and they then can pretend like they are your family member or next-door neighbor, you are more apt to click on to 

that email, and then they can get in. 

What steps are being taken to deal with phishing in terms of either requiring greater accountability by those who hold those positions who end up clicking by either punishing them or coming up 

with some system, so that we can anticipate that kind of phishing 

going on and prevent it? 

Secretary WORK. I would just like to make an overall point and 

then turn it over to Mike and Terry. Although our adversaries have 

very sophisticated capabilities in this regard, almost every one of 

these intrusions that have occurred, have occurred because of simple operator error, bad cyber hygiene. They click on a spear-phishing attempt. So we are going after that. I would just like to say 

that that is the biggest problem we have right now is getting our 

cyber hygiene better. 

Ms. SPEIER. Okay, but my point is, is there any kind of penalty 

being imposed on those who in a careless manner click on to them? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. The simple answer is yes. 

And I won’t go into the specifics of what has been imposed, but 

yes. We have upped the level of accountability on that and actions 

have been taken for people who have misbehaved in a cyber way. 

Secondly, we have increased the training frequency, phishing 

training, and we have taken certain actions on the networks to 

eliminate the ability to click on links. And at a minimum, we have 

a warning on there now that says you must think about this link, 

and in some cases—and again, I won’t say—you physically can no 

longer click on links via any of our networks. 

Admiral ROGERS. And I would say from a network perspective, 

I have implemented nine specific technical changes where, quite 

frankly, I have told users now, I am going to make your life harder. 

If this is what it takes to drive a change in behavior, I will make 

your user life harder to try to preclude this from happening. 

Ms. SPEIER. My last question and very briefly, what is keeping 

you up at night? 

Admiral ROGERS. So I would say from my perspective, there are 

three things in cyber that concern me: Are we going to see offensive 

activity taken against U.S. critical infrastructure? Are we going to 

see the focus shift from theft of intellectual property, the theft of 

information, to manipulation of the data that is in our system, so 

we no longer can trust what we see? And then the third thing that 

worries me is, are we going to see nonstate actors, meaning terrorist groups are probably at the forefront on my mind, start to use 

the Web as an offensive weapon? 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 
35 

Secretary WORK. I would add two things. One, we have a large 

number of systems, Congresswoman, that were built in an era, like 

Admiral Rogers, that was not—the systems were not built to withstand the cyber environment that we are in now. So what keeps 

me up at night is, can we get through all of our systems and make 

sure that they do have cyber hardening? Going forward, we are 

making sure that there are key performance parameters in every 

system that we have, but we have to go through this risk mitigation on every one of our systems and saying, what is the critical 

cyber vulnerability? Have we taken care of it? And I would just like 

to echo, it is manipulation of data, since we rely upon our networks, that really keeps me up at night. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. The gentlelady’s time is expired. 

The Chair now recognizes Chairman Wittman for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thanks for joining us today. 

Secretary Work, I want to begin with getting your perspective on 

how we address the cyber threat. We have constructed a military 

that is very adept and capable of addressing kinetic threats, and 

that is top-to-bottom capability. We have generalists. We have specialists. When enlistees come in, they learn the lessons in training 

about what to do in that kinetic environment. We have our officers 

that learn tactics and strategy within that environment. Yet it 

seems we have a very myopic or piecemeal element with the cyber 

threat. 

Give me your perspective. Shouldn’t we have the same top-to-bottom capability and capacity for cyber? Shouldn’t our enlisted men 

and women come in, shouldn’t they also get training in the cyber 

realm? Shouldn’t our curriculums at our service academies include 

very robust and extensive instruction and education within the 

cyber realm? How do we construct a force that is as capable 

kinetically as it should be in the cyber realm? And we are far behind, and we need to be catching up. Give me your perspective on 

how should we do that? Is that valuable to do, and what are you 

doing to get to that particular point? 

Secretary WORK. Congressman, it is very valuable. The first 

thing is to include—what we call this is improving the cyber hygiene of the entire force, making every single member—Active 

Duty, civilians, contractors, and Reserves—to understand the cyber 

threat that we face each day, and to understand the simple actions 

they can take to improve our security. I think many of the things 

that you say—in all of our education and our schools, cyber is now 

an important part of our curriculum. We have red teams that are 

going out and helping commanders understand where their 

vulnerabilities are and how they can improve. We have different 

types of means by which we hold people accountable for like if you 

have a negligent discharge with a weapon, that is a bad thing. We 

want everybody to know that a negligent discharge in cyber is almost, I mean, could be as dangerous. So I totally agree with what 

you are saying, and this is a big, big cyber cultural shift that Admiral Rogers spoke to earlier. 

Admiral ROGERS. And I would just echo that is the approach we 

are taking. This is so foundational to the future for us as a Department in terms of our ability to execute our missions that the Na-
36 

tion is counting on. We have got to do this foundationally across 

the spectrum. We don’t need the same level of training that the 

dedicated Cyber Mission Force has, but there has got to be a level 

of basic cyber awareness across our entire force, regardless of rank. 

Last comment, this is the one environment in which if we had 

given you access to a keyboard, you now represent a potential point 

of vulnerability, and everyone in our Department—that numbers in 

the millions in terms of the Active Component, contractors, civilians, reservists, Guard—everyone is an operator in this environment. 

Mr. WITTMAN. In that realm, that priority also has to be reflected 

in how resources are dedicated. Give me your perspective: Where 

are we dedicating resources for things like MILCON [military construction] for cyber, within personnel, within training, within hardware and software? I think it is also reflected not only in what you 

are doing from a doctrine standpoint, a philosophy standpoint, and 

training standpoint, but where are you dedicating resources to 

make sure that you are successfully meeting that objective? 

Secretary WORK. Well, when Secretary Carter was the Deputy 

Secretary filling the job that I fill now, starting around fiscal year 

2013, I believe, there was a concerted effort to try to increase the 

investment in cyber forces. I believe that we are doing very well 

in this regard. We could always do more. It is budget dependent. 

But as I said earlier in testimony, Secretary Carter says: Wherever 

our budget ends up, cyber is going to be a very, very top priority. 

The one area where I think we could do better on is in tools. I 

think we are focused—we had to build the human capital first, 

which we have been doing very well, but if there is one area where 

I think we could do better for Admiral Rogers and the team is to 

invest more money in tools that he would be able to then create 

better options for the force. 

Admiral ROGERS. And I could echo. I think we are doing a very 

good job with the dedicated Cyber Mission Force in terms of the 

commitment to bringing it online. Where I think we are going to 

need to look at over time, as the Secretary said, the things I have 

raised are tools, situational awareness, persistent training environment, the unified platform, and then asking yourselves over time: 

Is the manpower piece right? Is the command-and-control structure 

that we put in place right? And this is part of an ongoing process. 

What I try to remind people is, look, cyber is an environment in 

which where we are today is not where we are going to wind up. 

And we have got to stop focusing on the 100 percent solution up 

front. We have got to take this in bite-sized chunks and keep moving out. 

Mr. WITTMAN. If you could, just for the record, I would love to 

see a breakdown about what you are proposing in resource allocation now and what your projection is in the future to make sure 

we are building that capability. And you talked about the time element. Time in this, I think, is critical. So getting your perspective 

on how you are going to accomplish that, both strategically within 

the planning sense but also in allocation of resources, is going to 

be critical. 

Secretary WORK. I will take that for the record, sir. 
37 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 73.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

The Chair now recognize Mr. Ashford for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And many of my questions have been asked and answered. But 

I want to pick up on something that Admiral Rogers and Mr. Work 

mentioned a few minutes ago about the government shutdown. You 

know, and I have been sitting here since February, and I admire 

everybody on this committee and the witnesses. And I have learned 

a great deal. I have been here 8 months or whatever. 

I am from Nebraska. It is absolutely unfathomable, it is beyond 

belief, it is incomprehensible that this government or this Congress 

or anybody would even begin to talk about shutting down the government for whatever political gain they may get. And, you know, 

we were in the Middle East in February, and at the beginning of 

the—not the beginning of the ISIS effort, but certainly it was in 

the beginning stages of our effort to combat ISIS. And we were in 

Baghdad, and there was discussion at that point about standing up 

a force to address social media issues. It was at the very, very beginning, beginnings of that, at least in Baghdad, of getting both civilian and military personnel up to speed on what was going on 

with ISIS and social media. And we are now in October. And I 

know this is a little bit of a speech, and I apologize. But it seems 

to me at that time, I came back with the sense of all of the things 

we talk about in Congress now and all of the discussion about shutting down the government and all of these other issues—I understand this is democracy; we can talk about what we want to talk 

about. But I kept thinking to myself, why don’t we debate and discuss and at least give to the military, every branch of the military, 

some clear plan and understanding of where we want to go with 

not only ISIS but in the Middle East, generally? 

It seems to me that we are reacting to these various incidents. 

We are reacting to what the Russians did today because for whatever these existential threats are there; these other threats are 

there. It seems to me it is incumbent upon us in Congress to clearly indicate to you what we want you to do and where we want you 

to go because I think that is totally lacking. And this week, with 

all of the things that went on in the House, I just kept thinking 

to myself, what is our military thinking about we can’t get our 

house in order? We can’t operate. And going back to my service in 

Nebraska, they look at me like we are nuts. You know, we are 

sending our military. We are asking them to do almost an impossible task around the globe, and we are bickering about stuff that 

has nothing to do with giving you the capabilities you need to go 

forward. So, anyway, I have said enough. 

So here is my picking up on your third point about the social 

media issue, and that is the third thing that keeps you up at night. 

What is your analysis of where we are—in the next minute and 56 

seconds—where we are, Admiral Rogers, where we are with that 

third element, and how do you see that evolving? 

Admiral ROGERS. I think we need to do a better job of contesting 

ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] in the information dy-
38 

namic. Their ability in the information arena is every bit as important in many ways as their battlefield successes. And we have 

clearly focused a large piece of our strategy on trying to stop and 

forestall that battlefield activity level. I think we are going to need 

to do the same thing in the information dynamic because part of 

their ability to get out their story, their propaganda, their vision 

of the world around us, we need to contest that. ISIL is as much 

an idea in many ways—— 

Mr. ASHFORD. Right. 

Admiral ROGERS [continuing]. As it is a physical presence simplistically on the ground. 

Mr. ASHFORD. And how is that going? 

Admiral ROGERS. Clearly not where we want it to be. Multiple 

components across the government ongoing. Don’t get me wrong. 

But I think it is fair to say we have not achieved yet the impact 

that we think we need to have and certainly the impact that we 

want to have. 

Secretary WORK. And, Congressman, if I could just say that what 

your opening statement—certainly resonates with Secretary Carter 

and me. Strategy is all about balancing in ways and means. And 

when you have no idea what your means are, it is almost impossible to have a good strategy. So as I said earlier today, you know, 

in the last 6 years, we are in a situation where we think a continuing resolution [CR] is a better deal than a government shutdown, and it is. But it is certainly not something that I as a COO 

would say I would want to operate under. 

In the last 6 years, essentially what we have is a 9-month fiscal 

year because every first quarter, we are in a CR. And that means 

that we are limited to do what you told us to do last year, rather 

than doing the things we need to do this year. It is an incredible 

situation, and there is no Member of Congress in any House, in 

any party, that would sit in my job as a COO and say: We can 

make this work without compromising our national security. 

So I am sorry I am on the soapbox, but this is something that 

we deal with every day. We hope that we won’t have a government 

shutdown. We hope that the CR will be taken care of in a very 

quick manner. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Right. My time is up, but thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes Ms. McSally for 5 minutes. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

And now that you are on the topic, I want to make sure I am 

on the record that I, after serving 26 years in uniform and seeing 

government shutdowns and continuing resolutions and the impact 

that that has on our ability to do our mission, I have been strongly 

advocating against shutting down the government; strongly advocating for us doing our job and actually passing appropriations bills 

so that you guys can plan, you can strategize, you can execute the 

mission. And I would urge all of my colleagues, if you want to keep 

the government open, you need to vote to keep the government 

open. And that would be my urge to them today. Those of us who 

understand what that means are going to do that, but we would 
39 

appreciate a large number of my colleagues actually showing some 

courage in joining us. 

Anyway, on to the issues at hand. Prior to running for Congress, 

I was a professor at the George C. Marshall Center, one of our defense security centers. And one of the last courses that I participated in was a Senior Executive Seminar related to cybersecurity, 

cyberterrorism. 

And so, in your strategy, you talk about building and maintaining robust alliances, partnerships. Obviously, this is, you know, a 

global domain, and so they are now starting a—one of my colleagues, Phil Lark, retired Marine colonel, is starting a program on 

cybersecurity studies or he is leading that effort. 

And so I am wondering if you could speak to how the defense security centers fit in with this strategy; how you feel as far as resources in order to use tools like these security centers, like the 

Marshall Center, to execute that strategy; and whether you need 

new authorities or additional resources in that venue. 

Secretary WORK. Well, first of all, these different centers are very 

vital. Part of our strategy, regardless of what the level of resources 

are, Congresswoman, is partnerships. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Yeah. 

Secretary WORK. And establishing strong partnerships, and as 

Admiral Rogers and Terry have said, this is a collaborative environment that we all face the same threats and need to operate together. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right. 

Secretary WORK. So I don’t know if there are any authorities that 

Mike would ask to help us work more deeply with our partners, but 

I know that we are doing so very aggressively. 

Admiral ROGERS. I would say—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Resources as well, yeah. 

Admiral ROGERS. Right. It hasn’t been an authorities issue as 

much. And the case specifically of the Marshall Center, General 

Breedlove, in fact, has asked both I and the Department, you know, 

for assistance, said: Hey, this is important to me; I think it will 

generate good outcomes for us in Europe—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right. 

Admiral ROGERS [continuing]. As we are trying and understand 

the broader cyber environment. So I have committed to General 

Breedlove: Hey, look, I will be there to provide expertise to help because that is what I can bring, not necessarily money. 

We are working—I don’t think either of us off the top of our 

heads know the specifics, other than the fact that we have committed to moving forward on that. I know it is ongoing. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Yeah, and I will tell you, having been there—and 

sometimes we have senior officials from 45 different countries—this 

is not a technical course. It is more of an awareness of best practices, policy issues, especially for some of our less capable partners. 

They are not going to ever have a Cyber Command like we do, but 

if we can raise their game up a bit and we can have better collaboration and coordination for strategic understanding and best practices, how to quickly alert and respond and working with each 

other intelwise, threatwise, I think it goes a long way. I mean, I 

was very impressed with the capabilities that we have there. And 
40 

I would think it is a little bit of an investment for potentially huge 

strategic outcomes. 

Secretary WORK. We agree with you completely. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. I will just say some of that work is related. 

Mike will be doing some things, but over the next months, we will 

be in NATO working to do exactly that with some of our partners, 

raising their cyber basics. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Right. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. We will be in Bulgaria doing the same thing, 

and some of that is a result of some of the arrangements that were 

worked frequently from the Marshall Center. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Yeah. Great. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. That is paying back some good dividends. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Excellent. I look forward to working with you in 

the future if you have any other additional requests related to that 

with the firsthand experience that I have, so not just the Marshall 

Center but the other defense centers, obviously, because this is a 

global issue. 

So I thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. I thank the gentlelady. 

The Chair now recognizes Ms. Duckworth for 5 minutes. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I am very interested in looking at cyber vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure. I would love to drill down more 

specifically to our bases and installations that support core warfighting functions. I feel that they face similar threats. 

Our installations are tied into local grids, rely on sewage and 

water from the surrounding areas, so there is always potential for 

impact for those basic life services on the base. Certainly continuity 

of operations is critical for DOD, just as it is for our civilian infrastructure. 

Admiral, I would like for you to sort of address this, and I am 

going to give you an example that I found deeply, deeply disturbing. I took a tour of a contractor that—a wonderful company 

that works in smart grid technology. And as part of this tour of 

this facility, small business, they were very proud to show me what 

they were doing. They had won a contract at one of our facilities, 

one of our bases. Actually, the base where a major—I won’t say 

which base it is because this is not a secret room, but it was the 

home for a major maneuver division in the Army. And from another State where I was, I watched them turning off the lights at 

that base. 

And then when I asked the person who was operating the computer, who was turning the lights on and off at this base, I said: 

‘‘Do you have a secret clearance?’’ 

They said, ‘‘No.’’ 

I said: ‘‘Do you, as the company, have anybody with a secret 

clearance?’’ 

‘‘Yes, the chief engineer does.’’ 

But this is an unsecure room. People in the business were coming in and out. And they were very—I mean, amazing technology 

that is going to help us save tons of money when it comes to environmental costs and energy efficiency and all those good things as 
41 

a Democrat I love. But I was deeply, deeply concerned that I was 

sitting there watching them turn the lights on and off on a major 

road on a major installation of a major maneuver division command in the Army. 

Admiral, if you could speak a little bit to perhaps what you are 

doing to both coordinate with Installations Command for each of 

the different branches, whether it is the Army’s Installation Management Command, the Marine Corps’ Installations Command, and 

also local civilian infrastructure as well. And, by the way, this base 

is outside of a major metropolitan city. It is not one of the Army 

bases that is out in the middle of nowhere. I spent a lot of time 

at those myself, but I was deeply concerned. 

Admiral ROGERS. So we share your concern. The services and installation and their respective installation commands are working 

with each individual installation. I had been an installation commander myself in the course of my career, so I have experienced 

this as a commander. When you are so dependent in some ways on 

infrastructure and capability that is outside of your immediate 

span and control and yet it directly derives your ability to execute 

your mission, it is one of the reasons why collectively in the Department, we ask ourselves: So what are the capabilities we need 

to bring on the installation, if you will, to put redundancy and 

backups in so we have a level of control? 

We are working our way through this. The challenge I think we 

find is, again, it goes just the scope of the problem sets out there, 

just the infrastructure that we count on as a Department, that just 

the broad swath of it, the size and the age of it in many ways as 

we are trying to collectively work our way through this. This is a 

problem set that is going to take us years to work our way through. 

I don’t think there is any doubt about that. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Do you have a liaison from Cyber Command 

that sits at installation command for each of the branches of service? 

Admiral ROGERS. No. What I do is I work through my service 

components who partner with their installation command. So, for 

example, in my last job where I was the Navy’s cyber individual 

reporting to U.S. Cyber Command, I was working directly with the 

Navy’s Installations Command as to what we were doing in naval 

installations, you know, around the world for us, and we still do 

that now. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Is there any policy that looks at—and one of 

the great things about this committee is this is a very bipartisan 

committee. And I want to applaud our chairman for his continuing 

work on acquisition reform. 

But one of my concerns with acquisition reform is these contractors and sub-subcontractors. Huawei North American Regional 

headquarters is actually in my district. And I have concern that we 

are talking about service subcontractors that are several layers 

down, and we are not inspecting them. I mean, there was nobody 

inspecting this contractor and making sure that they were—I 

mean, that they had, you know, secured the facilities and their 

computers and the devices that are in the hands of people who are 

actually turning on and off the lights at a major military base. 
42 

Admiral ROGERS. Right. So we have taken the Huawei issue specifically for action. We will provide feedback on that. This, I share 

your concern, ma’am. This is something we are going to have to 

just work our way through. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. What do you specifically—do you have plans in 

place? Are you writing policy? What are you doing specifically to 

address this particular issue? 

Admiral ROGERS. I apologize—— 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Mike, let me take that one. 

Admiral ROGERS. Yeah. 

Mr. HALVORSEN. There is policy in place. We are looking at all 

of the installations and, frankly, grading them and looking for 

where are the priorities. 

But as Mike said, this is a priority issue. There is a vast number 

of, you know, installations. Very frankly, the control systems for 

power and water when they were built, there was no consideration 

of cyber, so now we have to go back and fix that. 

We have a list of those priorities. We are prioritizing on those 

bases that have more strategic assets first, which I think is smart, 

and we will keep going down that list to fix those issues. But there 

is a priority list. We have new language required in the FAR [Federal Acquistion Regulation] for all levels of contractors now to meet 

certain requirements about the security control systems, and that 

is in place. 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Can I have a copy of your priorities list and 

that new language for contractors? Is that available for Members 

of Congress? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. We will certainly take that for the record. I am 

sure it is, and we will figure out how to get it to you. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 74.] 

Ms. DUCKWORTH. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Franks, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Admiral Rogers, I appreciate people like you that put yourself at 

risk and assiduously try to do everything you can to protect the 

homeland and the future generations. So, on behalf of my children, 

thank you. 

Admiral ROGERS. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. FRANKS. I am going to paraphrase here, but in recent press 

briefings at the Wilson Center, you said that what keeps you up 

at night—and I know you have been asked that question several 

times today—are threats to critical infrastructure and that you 

have been observing nation-states spending a lot of time within the 

power structure of the United States. And as you know better than 

perhaps anyone, the Department of Defense relies upon the electric 

grid for 99 percent of its electricity needs, without which even the 

Department’s position is that it cannot effect its mission. 

And, of course, there are 320 million Americans that also depend 

upon it pretty significantly for everyday survival. And a widespread 

collapse of the electric grid, of course, would lead to gross societal 

collapse. 
43 

So wearing your CYBERCOM hat, how protected is our electric 

grid from, number one, cyberattacks and lesser discussed attacks 

that could come from geomagnetic disturbance or electromagnetic 

pulse? And do you find industry to be a willing partner in helping 

to secure the grid? And what have you been tasked with or coordinated with or asked to do from the Department of Homeland Security or the FERC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in regards to hardening the electric grid and protecting it and just giving us your best military advice? A lot of questions here, I am 

sorry. What do you think needs to be accomplished to robustly 

harden our electric grid against these stated threats? 

Admiral ROGERS. Let me try to do them backwards to forwards. 

Remember, DOD does not physically act on private sector networks. I am not responsible for hardening them. 

Mr. FRANKS. That is true, but without them, you will certainly 

maybe revisit that. 

Admiral ROGERS. Right. My only point is, your question specifically, though, is, what are you doing as—well, that is not Cyber 

Command’s role. What we do is we partner with DHS in their role. 

I try to make sure that, again, because one of the missions you 

heard the Secretary talk about in the very beginning, where there 

is an expectation that DOD needs to be ready to respond if the 

President decides that we have to respond to a cyber event of significant consequence, a power scenario is definitely one of the 

things that we talk about. 

So we partner with DHS. We partner with the segment—for example, we do a Cyber Guard annual exercise. I had two different 

power sector segments from two different parts of the United 

States that participated in this exercise. That was one of the scenarios we walked our way through. 

In terms of the grid, if you will, vulnerability, I would argue it 

is pretty broad. If you look in the eastern part of the United States, 

the grid is operating on the margin already just between capacity 

and demand. 

The other point I try to make, particularly in the eastern part 

of the United States, is we need to think more than just the U.S. 

Our grid in the east in particular is so tied into our Canadian 

counterparts for hydroelectric and other power generation. Capacity on their side of the border often is flowing south to meet our 

basic needs. 

The other challenge I find in the power sector is—and they are 

quick to remind me of this—is their business model: ‘‘A, Admiral, 

we are a regulated industry. The only way for us to generate revenue is through rates. Those are governed. I just can’t universally 

say I am going to upcharge this to generate a $5 billion capital 

fund that I can use to invest in basic infrastructure.’’ So each of 

the utilities, if you will, within the sector is trying to work their 

way through it. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, now, I appreciate that. 

I guess one of things over the years in dealing with this issue 

that has occurred to me is that what you just said—and you are 

absolutely correct; I mean, you know, this is not your responsibility 

to tell the private sector what to do with the grid. But then the private sector, when we talk to them about hardening the grid for na-
44 

tional security purposes, they say that is the national defense apparatus’ job. And, in the meantime, this, what could be a profound 

threat, given the fact that all of our other security, our other critical infrastructures rely heavily upon the grid, it walks the 13th 

floor of congressional debate, and no one addresses it. 

And, of course, you know, there is always a moment in the life 

of every problem when it is big enough to be seen and still small 

enough to be addressed. And I think we live in that window. So I 

certainly don’t offer you any advice. Just the question I hope lingers in our minds is, are we doing what is relevant to protect the 

national security on this particular threat because certainly a loss 

of the grid would be the ultimate cybersecurity issue? I mean, you 

know, if you can’t turn those computers on, you can’t do really 

much else. 

Again, there is no arrogance in my comments, Admiral. I think 

that you are doing a great job, and I hope you will consider this 

as much as possible. 

Admiral ROGERS. Certainly. 

Mr. FRANKS. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS OF ALABAMA. I thank the gentleman for yielding 

back. 

All of our members have completed their questions. 

I want to thank the witnesses for their time and preparation for 

this hearing. I know it takes a lot to get ready for these and your 

time here today, but it has been very beneficial to us. 

And, with that, we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 

(73) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Secretary WORK. At this time, we have not taken legal actions or pursued economic sanctions. The Administration remains concerned about Iran’s increasing capabilities and malicious activity in cyberspace. The Department works closely with 

interagency and international partners to enhance cyber defenses. The President is 

able to use a broad range of tools—including diplomatic engagement, trade policy, 

and law enforcement mechanisms—to address cybersecurity threats emanating from 

Iran. [See page 18.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Secretary WORK and Admiral ROGERS. Only in limited circumstances would the 

Department have insight into or the contractual right to control a cleared defense 

contractor’s decision to use any particular subcontractor or supplier. Absent suspension or debarment or a statutory restriction on contracting with a prohibited source, 

our cleared defense contractors would generally not be precluded from using a specific vendor’s telecommunications equipment. 

However, it is important to note that the Department has several mechanisms in 

place to help ensure the security of products or services delivered to us and the systems that cleared defense contractors use to store or process sensitive DOD information. 

First, the Department requires Program Protection Plans (PPPs) to address the 

full spectrum of security risks for the critical components contained in our weapons 

systems, including supply chain vulnerabilities, and to implement mitigations to 

manage risk to system functionality. In addition to the security requirements applied to deliverable products or services, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 

requires that contractor information systems used to store or process classified information are compliant with the National Industrial Security Program Operating 

Manual (NISPOM). Additionally, the Defense FAR Supplement (DFARS) requires 

that contractor unclassified systems that will store or process sensitive Department 

of Defense (DOD) information must also provide appropriate security for that information. 

There are additional statutory authorities available to the Department to limit or 

exclude vendors in specific circumstances. For example, section 1211 of the National 

Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, as amended by section 

1243 of the NDAA for FY 2012, and as implemented at DFARS Section 225.77, prohibits the Secretary of Defense from acquiring supplies or services that are on the 

United States Munitions List through a contract, or subcontract at any tier, from 

any Communist Chinese military company. In addition, section 806 of the NDAA 

for FY 2011, as amended by section 806 of the NDAA for FY 2013, has been implemented at DFARS Subpart 239.73, ‘‘Requirements for Information Relating to Supply Chain Risk.’’ The clause enables DOD components to exclude a source that fails 

to meet established qualifications standards or fails to receive an acceptable rating 

for an evaluation factor regarding supply chain risk for information technology acquisitions, and to withhold consent for a contractor to subcontract with a particular 

source or to direct a contractor to exclude a particular source. [See page 32.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Secretary WORK. The Department continues to develop and maintain cyberspace 

capabilities to support full spectrum operations in pursuit of national objectives, and 

is prepared to defend the nation against cyber threats and provide the President options in crisis or contingency. 

To support these strategic goals, the Department is prepared to defend information, information-based processes, and information systems against threats, thus ensuring their availability, integrity, authenticity, confidentiality, and non-repudiation 

on the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN) at all security levels. 
74 

The Department has established a trained and ready cyber operations workforce 

with all the technical capabilities necessary to complete missions and support fullspectrum operations. The FY2016 President’s budget requests $5.5 billion in FY 

2016 (FYDP, $27.4 billion) for the cyberspace operations, an increase of 11 percent. 

The FY 2016 cyberspace operations budget continues to support: computer network 

defense, cyber identity and access management, engineering and deployment controls, cryptographic key production and management, cross domain capabilities, 

workforce development, information assurance and operational resiliency, offensive 

cyber operations, and cyberspace Science and Technology. [See page 37.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. DUCKWORTH 

Mr. HALVORSEN. The Department has a very mature and active Defense Critical 

Infrastructure Program and a disciplined Mission Assurance Risk Management 

process that is used to identify the Department’s most critical assets. The process 

includes working with the DOD Components to identify single points of failure related to DOD OPLANs/CONPLANs, and the Department’s other strategic missions. 

It also includes prioritization of assets for risk management efforts (to include 

cybersecurity) and resource investment. 

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) language referred to in testimony is actually an August 26, 2015, update to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation 

Supplement (DFARS), DFARS Case 2013–D018, ‘‘Network Penetration Reporting 

and Contracting for Cloud Services. This rule expands upon the existing ‘‘Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting’’ clause, which 

only covered the protection of and reporting of incidents affecting the controlled 

technical information. The August 2015 interim rule expands the protection and reporting requirements to a broader scope of information (i.e., ‘‘covered defense information’’) which includes controlled technical information as a subset. This interim 

rule also requires contractors to be compliant with NIST Special Publication 800– 

171, ‘‘Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Information Systems and Organizations’’. [See page 42.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BROOKS 

Secretary WORK. The Department of Defense (DOD) Cyber Strategy emphasizes 

improving cyber collaboration, information sharing, and unity of effort within the 

Department. The efforts at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) Cyber Campus, and similar facilities, are 

consistent with this emphasis. The AMRDEC Cyber Campus at Redstone Arsenal, 

Alabama, is an organization designed to integrate, in one location, the expertise of 

multiple DOD and non-DOD organizations that support aviation and missile system 

cybersecurity. This campus participates in several programs that leverage DODwide capabilities in cybersecurity and related areas, such as the Joint Federated Assurance Center and the DOD Software Assurance Community of Practice. [See 

page 25.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 

(77) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FORBES 

Mr. FORBES. The Intelligence Community is using commercial cloud computing capabilities to enable important classified missions. If commercial cloud services are 

able to meet the security standards of the intelligence community, can DOD use 

commercial cloud services for classified and sensitive missions? Does DOD have particular technical concerns with regard to the capabilities available on the commercial market? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. The Intelligence Community’s (IC) use of a private, classified instance of the Amazon AWS cloud demonstrates that, when properly configured and 

separated from public networks and facilities, commercial cloud services can be leveraged to satisfy many of the Department’s requirements for classified and sensitive missions. The IC commercial cloud is essentially a private version of Amazon’s 

public cloud that has been built on the IC’s premises supporting the Top Secret network. DOD IC components are exploring contract mechanisms to permit DOD applications and data on the IC cloud. 

For the Secret environment, it is not the technical concerns that present a significant challenge; rather, it is the time and investment risk associated with acquiring 

a private cloud that operates solely within that classified environment. The Department is currently in the process of identifying requirements and options for expanding commercial cloud services to support secret networks. 

In the unclassified environment, the Department is able to leverage more of the 

existing commercial infrastructure, which greatly reduces the time and expense necessary to establish a commercial cloud service. The Department continues to work 

with commercial cloud providers to perform cybersecurity assessments and approve 

commercial cloud services for use on the Unclassified but Sensitive Internet Protocol 

Router Network (NIPRNet). As of October 2015, the Department has approved more 

than 30 commercial cloud services for use within the Department. 

Mr. FORBES. Is DOD looking at solutions that can prevent exploits from succeeding via isolation/containerization strategies ‘‘at the end point’’? What measures 

are you taking to address the advanced ‘‘polymorphic’’ threats you face? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Yes, DOD is looking at solutions that can prevent exploits from 

succeeding via isolation/containerization strategies at the end point. The isolation/ 

containment concept is a primary function of DOD’s DMZ architecture. By physically and logically separating public, restricted, and private information systems 

into their own security zones, movement between these zones becomes minimalized 

and reduces the attack surface. 

In regards to polymorphic attacks, DOD has expanded its detection arsenal to include technology designed to identify malicious code behavior through analysis that 

identifies specific code execution patterns. This addresses the challenge of malicious 

code variants. Behavioral analytics can be applied at runtime to a specific machine 

tracing the execution of applications or offline via a sandbox environment. 

The ability to detect and react at the endpoints is a key part of DOD’s Defense 

in Depth and Layered Defense strategies. Once a compromise is detected, containment from the rest of the unaffected Information System (IS) and Information Technology (IT) assets requires swift action and the ability to keep the event scope isolated to the smallest area possible. Micro-segmentation, virtual computing, and software-designed networking will enable Cyber Security Providers, Network defenders, 

and security engineers more options and capabilities to keep the IT and IS at the 

prerequisite security posture to meet it missions. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. We heard testimony earlier in the week that attribution in cyberspace is much improved, allowing U.S. agencies to identify and target our greatest 

cyber-based threats. Do you feel you have adequate guidance and the necessary authorities to executive sufficient offensive and defensive cyber-based activities in support of DOD’s three cyber missions? 

Secretary WORK. Yes, I believe we have adequate guidance and the necessary authorities to execute sufficient offensive and defensive cyber operations in support of 
78 

the Department’s three cyber missions. Consistent with Presidential guidance and 

the Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, the Department will streamline its policies and procedures for cyber. This effort will help translate national and departmental guidance and policy for implementation in tactical operations. 

Mr. SHUSTER. There are many companies that partner with multiple sectors of the 

U.S. Government to include DOD, civilian agencies and the Intelligence Community. 

I recognize that each entity must develop a comprehensive cyber strategy yet I 

worry that differing strategies among our government entities could create challenges for the companies that work across agencies. What issue areas do you believe 

are best legislated by Congress for the whole of government and what areas do you 

recommend we defer to DOD and/or other executive agencies to develop? 

Secretary WORK. The Department depends on passing legislation with meaningful 

measures to address core critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and provisions to facilitate public-private sharing of information. This can be done while ensuring the 

protection of privacy and civil liberties. The Department appreciates the early steps 

taken during this session to build consensus on information sharing legislation. The 

Department also looks forward to progress on other key provisions, such as data 

breach and cybercriminal provisions, included in the President’s legislative proposal 

submitted earlier this year. 

Internally, the Department works continuously with federal interagency partners 

to develop a whole-of-government approach to ensure all the resources of the federal 

government are used wisely. The Department also amended its cybersecurity reporting requirements for defense contractors who hold sensitive defense information in 

their networks. On August 26, 2015, the Department issued an interim rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to implement section 

941 of the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires 

cleared defense contractors to report network penetrations and to allow defense personnel to access those networks to assess the impact of the reported cyber incident. 

Mr. SHUSTER. What steps has and can DOD take to prevent malicious attacks 

similar to the OPM breach from occurring on DOD networks? Given that in many 

instances cyberattacks on U.S. networks are undertaken by entities linked to foreign 

military forces, what response do you feel is appropriate to such a malicious cyberattack? 

Secretary WORK. Once the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach was 

identified, the Department immediately took a number of steps to mitigate potential 

impact to the Department’s systems. This included scanning systems for indicators 

of compromise from the breach; mitigating vulnerabilities in other repositories of 

personally-identifiable information of the Department’s personnel; and assessing 

any network connections between OPM and Department of Defense networks. 

The Department’s total network attack surface is very large. It is critical to identify, prioritize, and defend the most important networks and data so the Department can carry out its missions effectively. 

To stay ahead of cyber threats, Secretary Carter places a high priority on investing in technology and innovation. The Department is enhancing its cyber defense 

capabilities by building and employing more defendable network architecture in the 

Joint Information Environment. 

Many hackers frequently target the defense industrial base. Network and data 

protection requires extensive collaboration with the private sector. The collaboration 

includes sharing defensive information, ensuring that the Department’s contractors 

report attempted and successful cyber intrusions, and encouraging or mandating adherence to cybersecurity standards as appropriate. 

In addition to building U.S. cyber defense and cybersecurity capabilities, the 

United States will continue to respond to cyberattacks against U.S. interests at a 

time, in a manner, and in a place of our choosing, using appropriate instruments 

of U.S. power and in accordance with applicable law. As with attacks in the physical 

domain, the Administration takes into account the severity of the attack, such as 

loss of life or property damage, and consider all possible levers, including diplomatic, economic, and military efforts, when contemplating any response. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Many of the strategic objectives in the 2015 cyber strategy require 

significant changes to the services’ human capital management programs related to 

recruitment, retention, training and utilization. Is the human capital enterprise engaging and adapting rapidly enough to achieve the stated objectives? 

Admiral ROGERS. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained 

in the committee files.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Earlier in the week, we heard testimony from industry experts that 

recommended a ‘‘Zero Trust’’ or ‘‘micro-segmented’’ network to prevent significant 

data losses. Do you agree with that recommendation and if so, what would be potential barriers to implementing that approach across DOD? 
79 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Yes, we agree that a ‘‘Zero Trust’’ concept implemented through 

‘‘micro-segmentation’’ has significant advantages for cybersecurity. Implementing 

these concepts would theoretically allow for 100%, near-real-time inspection of network traffic and, if necessary, isolation and remediation of impacted areas. In a perfect world, micro-segmentation would occur at the lowest possible level; for instance, 

an individual suite of offices versus an entire organization. 

The Department has issued Requests for Information and has reviewed responses 

received. This information will be integrated into the pilot programs and proof of 

concept testing as these software-defined networking and network virtualization 

programs move forward. Lessons learned from the pilots and proofs of concept testing will determine the required skill sets needed to operate and manage micro-segmentation of the DODIN. 

The challenges of implementing this concept DOD-wide include three primary factors: First, the technology to implement is still emerging. Although companies like 

VMWare, Palo Alto, and EMC are bringing products to market, they’re not yet complete solutions. 

Second, full implementation requires re-engineering and integration at the data 

center-level rather than at the network-level. DOD is still working to implement a 

number of virtualization and software-defined networking initiatives across the Department, and the best path forward has not been determined. 

Third, the skills and tools to manage the dramatic increase in the number of virtual networks that would occur as a result of implementing micro-segmentation do 

not currently exist in the Department. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER 

Ms. SPEIER. During your testimony, you stated that those involved in the spearphishing attack on the JCS UNCLASSIFED network were punished but were unwilling to discuss specifics in public. Please provide an overview of those involved 

and their punishments as well as any policies that have been put in place to punish 

those responsible for breaches. 

Secretary WORK and Mr. HALVORSEN. The Department of Defense follows standard investigative procedures to derive an accurate accounting of any situation requiring further investigation. In the case of the Joint Staff spear-phishing attack, 

the Joint Staff conducted a fact-finding inquiry to determine the facts surrounding 

the intrusion. In response to the incident, immediate corrective actions were taken 

addressing those involved; the Director, Joint Chiefs of Staff, led Joint Staff-wide 

training, and additional comprehensive training was provided for each affected individual prior to reconnecting to the network. 

Ms. SPEIER. During your testimony, you stated that those involved in the spearphishing attack on the JCS UNCLASSIFED network were punished but were unwilling to discuss specifics in public. Please provide an overview of those involved 

and their punishments as well as any policies that have been put in place to punish 

those responsible for breaches. 

Admiral ROGERS. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained 

in the committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN 

Mr. LAMBORN. What are you doing to ensure cyber personnel keep critical skills 

current, such as computer tech and programming languages, which change constantly? More broadly, what are you doing to improve cyber training? 

Admiral ROGERS. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained 

in the committee files.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALZ 

Mr. WALZ. Do you believe our current capabilities pertaining to the number of individuals and technical tools is sufficient to deal with the scale of the amount of 

cyberattacks that the nation faces on a daily basis? If not, how would you rate our 

risk level due to these lacking resources? High, medium, low? 

Secretary WORK. Cyber-attacks are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication, 

and consequence. Although the nation will never eliminate all cyber threats, both 

government and industry, acting together, are taking important steps to reduce 

cyber risk. The Department of Defense (DOD) is halfway through manning, training, and equipping the Cyber Mission Force, which includes developing capabilities 
80 

to defend the nation from a cyber-attack. Additionally, DOD, through efforts such 

as the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental, is strengthening interaction with industry to identify breakthrough and emerging technologies to counter the sophisticated cyber threats the U.S. faces. The risk of cyber-attacks against the United 

States remains high, and the Department must do everything it can to be prepared. 

This includes continuing to build and equip our Cyber Mission Force and to innovate in partnership with the private sector. Congress can help by expanding DOD’s 

civilian hiring authorities to recruit and retain top talent. 

Mr. WALZ. Is there any discussion or efforts taking place in DOD to address and 

counter the use of social media and the Internet for recruitment purposes by terrorist and extremists groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda? 

Secretary WORK. Yes. The Department of Defense is engaged on multiple fronts 

to address and counter terrorist and extremist group activities in social media, in 

close coordination with our interagency and foreign partners as appropriate. More 

specifically, the Department has a task force focused on supporting interagency and 

foreign government actions to disrupt foreign fighter movement from their home 

countries to the Middle East. One of the sources of information used to enable these 

operations is derived from social media. 

Additionally, the Department of Defense plays a supporting role in the Department of State’s effort to counter violent extremist ideologies, including providing 

personnel to augment the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, 

which has the mission to coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide strategic 

communications focused on violent extremists and terrorist organizations. The Department of Defense’s efforts alone will not solve the challenge of this contested information environment and adversary propaganda. 

The imperative to stay abreast of increasing technological change and our adversaries’ rapid adaptation of technology demands that the Department use a thoughtful, strategic approach to achieve success against a mix of adversaries. Simply trying to match our adversaries ‘‘tweet’’ for ‘‘tweet’’ or matching Website for Website 

would be both fiscally irresponsible and operationally ineffective. Instead, the Department continues to rely on the skills of its personnel to develop thoughtful, wellconstructed plans and partnerships with other U.S. Government departments and 

agencies and with foreign partners, and to leverage a variety of means to disrupt 

the adversary’s narrative, expose its contradictions and falsehoods, and ultimately 

bring credible, persuasive, and truthful information to audiences who often have significantly differing perceptions and cultural norms than our own. The main challenge today is the size and pace of communications in social media. Our ability to 

assess the social media environment is challenged due to its broad scope and constantly changing nature. 

Mr. WALZ. As DOD continues to develop the Cyber Mission Force, how does DOD 

plan on measuring its efforts toward progress and readiness on a continuous basis? 

Admiral ROGERS. [The information referred to is for official use only and retained 

in the committee files.] 

Mr. WALZ. Is there any discussion or efforts taking place in DOD to address and 

counter the use of social media and the Internet for recruitment purposes by terrorist and extremists groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda? 

Admiral ROGERS. [The information referred to is classified and retained in the 

committee files.] 

Mr. WALZ. Is there any discussion or efforts taking place in DOD to address and 

counter the use of social media and the Internet for recruitment purposes by terrorist and extremists groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda? 

Mr. HALVORSEN. Countering the threat posed by terrorist and extremists organizations using the Internet for recruitment purposes is a concern of the Department. 

I would like to defer to Admiral Michael Rogers, Commander of the U.S. Cyber 

Command, Director of the National Security Agency on what the Department is 

doing to combat this threat. 

Æ