Editor’s note: Enabled by the increased connectivity of the Internet of Things and the growing ubiquity of digital transformation initiatives, last week’s major Internet attack indicates that such assaults will become more frequent as nation-states and rogue actors seek to undermine Western institutions, similar to the highly publicized hacking efforts focused on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, writes analyst Joey Cresta of Technology Business Research.

HAMPTON, N.H. – The large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyberattack that flooded the servers of Domain Name System host Dyn on Friday, Oct. 21, undoubtedly proves the disruptive potential of coordinated hacking efforts on networked communications.

Enabled by the increased connectivity of the Internet of Things and the growing ubiquity of digital transformation initiatives, these types of attacks will become more frequent as nation-states and rogue actors seek to undermine Western institutions, similar to the highly publicized hacking efforts focused on the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

  • VIDEO: What happened? here’s a quick video recap. Watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXqzhel7Xm0

The clandestine nature of cyberattacks makes them an attractive alternative to real-world actions that would be considered too politically provocative for foes of the U.S. to execute. Friday’s attack was the highest-profile DDoS incident thus far, but data show the situation was already escalating; Reston, Va.-based network infrastructure operator Verisign reported a 75% increase in these types of attacks between April and June 2016 compared with the same period in 2015. As these attacks proliferate, it will be incumbent on the U.S. to continually improve its cyber posture.

While Friday’s attacks were primarily little more than a nuisance to social media users, there are significantly more sinister possible outcomes of major DDoS attacks on critical government networks, especially those of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

Uninterrupted communications are critical to national security

Though ostensibly an attack on the ability of commercial entities to conduct their daily business, Friday’s incident is indicative of the threats cyberattacks pose to U.S. national security. Common targets of DDoS attacks, which shut down a network by flooding servers with traffic from multiple infected endpoints, include servers that handle command and control capabilities. Given the importance of uninterrupted command and control to situational awareness and decision making for military leaders and in-theater assets, protection against future large-scale DDoS incidents is paramount, particularly as more devices come online and provide a greater number of endpoints for attacks to be unleashed.

According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), current DDoS defenses that rely on network-based filtering, traffic diversion and replication of stored data are insufficient to meet the DOD’s desired capabilities for response times, DDoS attack identification and thwarting, and the defense of real-time transactional services. DARPA, which is on the cutting edge of R&D for the DOD, is working with industry and academia on the Extreme DDoS Defense (XD3) program to improve resilience to DDoS attacks.

Federal contractors with deep cyber portfolios will benefit from the imperative on government to bolster cyber defenses

Raytheon, a top-tier provider of cybersecurity services to clients in government and heavily regulated verticals, is among DARPA’s partners on the XD3 program. There are few companies that can match Raytheon’s deep cyber services portfolio, as the contractor wisely invested early and often in advanced cybersecurity capabilities over the past decade. Numerous cyber-related investments such as the acquisition of managed services provider Foreground Security in late 2015 provide Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services (IIS) segment with a robust portfolio and coveted cyber expertise to ensure it remains a leading industry supporter of the federal government’s efforts to establish dominance over the cyber domain.

In the 3Q16 Raytheon IIS Initial Response that will publish following Raytheon’s 3Q16 earnings conference call on Oct. 27, TBR explores how Raytheon continues to invest in cybersecurity, including the opening of its new cyber facility in Augusta, Ga., to support U.S. Cyber Command (Cybercom). The footprint expansion will not only help IIS embed itself with Cybercom at Fort Gordon, one of the few military installations expected to grow over the next few years, but will also support IIS’ efforts on XD3. The Augusta facility provides proximity to the Georgia Tech Research Corp. in Atlanta, which is also a DARPA partner on XD3.

Although viruses such as Stuxnet, which was used to break Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, demonstrate the true destructive potential of cyber warfare, more mundane incidents often do more to raise public awareness of major developments in, and dangers of, technological shifts. The DDoS attack of Oct. 21 makes clear that U.S. government investment in cyber defenses will remain paramount, which, coupled with Cybercom’s proposed 8.4% budget growth for federal FY17, ensures Raytheon IIS is aligned with a long-term growth opportunity in the federal market. With the federal IT budget expected to grow minimally over the next five years, it is critical for contractors to make investments that enable them to pursue such pockets of growth. Few, if any, are better positioned than Raytheon to capitalize on the cybersecurity services opportunity.

(C) TBR