Air Force shifting to classified systems

The Air Force is looking to move more of its electronic traffic off its open networks and onto more secure, classified systems, the Air Force's deputy chief information officer said.

"We're making significant efforts robusting our classified capabilities," said John Gilligan, who is also co-chairman of the CIO Council's security, privacy and critical infrastructure committee.

"An enormous amount of information is processed in our unclassified networks," he said. But as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Air Force is moving activity off those unclassified networks onto more secure, classified systems, he said.

Soon after the attacks, the decision was made fairly quickly that the Air Force was operating on a war footing, Gilligan said, and that the United States was under attack. Therefore, the Air Force needed a more protected means of communication, he said.

"That is probably going to be the way we are operating in the future," he said Oct. 11 during a forum about how agencies are reacting to the terrorist attacks. As a result, the Air Force is making a "fairly significant effort to invest in our classified network," he said.

Across government, the attacks have changed the way agencies assess risk. A month ago, few thought it was feasible to turn a commercial airplane into a missile. That has changed, he said.

"Things that we thought were unthinkable before have become possible," he said. That has resulted in a reassessment of the government's security defenses.