Cyber command may grab new DISA headquarters

The U.S. Cyber Command, created to protect the military's digital networks from attack, is looking to locate its headquarters at Fort Meade, MD in a new complex that now is being constructed to house the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

The $390 million, 1-million-square-foot multi-building complex now under construction could provide the Cyber Command with the type of facility it needs to conduct operations. It will include sensitive compartmented information facility rooms for classified work, built-in fiber-optic networks, and a secure wireless system.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in June approved the creation of a unified U.S. Cyber Command to oversee the protection of military networks against foreign and domestic cyber threats. As part of its mission, the command is expected to develop a range of offensive cyber warfare capabilities.

Gates said earlier this year that the United States is "under cyber-attack virtually all the time, every day" and that the Pentagon is changing its strategy to combat and use cyber-warfare in the U.S. defense policy.

The Pentagon is expected to more than quadruple the number of security experts it employs to combat cyberattacks.The Cyber Command will be part of the U.S. Strategic Command. A Pentagon spokesman said no decision has been made on the location of the Cyber Command, and is now under review by the defense secretary.

DISA is a Pentagon combat support agency that provides real-time information technology and communications support to the president, vice president, secretary of defense, the military services, and the combatant commands. Nearly 4,300 DISA, Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations and tenant positions are scheduled to transfer to Fort Meade by 2011.

To read more on the space shuffle:
- see this nextgov.com article