President Raises Profile of Military Cybersecurity Defense

President Donald Trump has raised the profile of the country's coordinated effort to defend its military against cyber attacks.

THe President Friday said he had directed that the U.S. Cyber Command be raised to the status of a Unified Combatant command, which involves more than one branch of the service and has a continuing mission. For example, there is a Special Ops Command and Strategic Command.

The new command's function will be stopping cyber threats, its geography will be the country's broadband neural net.

Trump said the move was a sign of the country's "increased resolve" to combat cyber threats, including to U.S. allies, and a way to "streamline command and control of time-sensitive cyberspace operations by consolidating them under a single commander with authorities commensurate with the importance of such operations" and insure those operations get enough funds.

He also said the Secretary of Defense was looking into separating the Cyber Command from the National Security Agency so it stands on its own.

"Through United States Cyber Command, we will tackle our cyberspace challenges in coordination with like-minded allies and partners as we strive to respond rapidly to evolving cyberspace security threats and opportunities globally."

The U.S. Cyber Command "plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to lead day-to-day defense and protection of DoD information networks."

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.