DOD braces for growth in cybersecurity program

The Pentagon is readying for as many as 10,000 participants in a program through which the defense industrial base can share cybersecurity information, according to a new Federal Register notice.

The Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity program -- dubbed the DIB CS program -- was established to "enhance and supplement DIB participants' capabilities to safeguard DOD information that resides on or transits DIB unclassified networks or information systems," the Pentagon says on the program website.

The public-private partnership allows the Pentagon and participants to share unclassified and classified information about cyber threats.

According to an April 28 notice, the office of the DOD chief information officer is renewing proposed public information collection. The notice lists the number of respondents at 10,000 and says the responses per participant could number five each year. The average response would take seven hours, the notice says.

Alan Chvotkin, counsel at the Professional Services Council, said the document stands out both for the number of anticipated respondents as well as the frequency of those responses.

"It may signal that DOD is being more realistic or more fearful about how many pings are on networks that are likely to trigger the need for a report back to DOD," he said, though he added that "not every report is a breach and not every report is the exfiltration of data."

He said DOD appears to be "anticipating or hoping that a lot more people would participate than are now participating."

"The goal would be, over time, to expand the program and to maybe go government-wide,” Chvotkin added.