Navy command engages in info warfare campaign.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold

Monitoring the Navy's daily electronic communications, Petty Officer James Smith, a cryptologic technician on the Naval Computer Incident Response Team, spotted the intrusion. Not much to look at just lines on a graph--it appeared to be a probe of the service's computer network, not a malicious cyber attack, said Petty Officer 1st Class Guy Huffman, the senior enlisted man on duty.

The team, known as NAVCIRT, is part of the Naval Network Warfare Command, stood up in July 2002 at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Va., in part to prevent and respond quickly to threats such as this.

"We get probes several times a day," Huffman said. "It's mostly just hackers seeing how far they can get."

The probes are nuisances, but they aren't illegal, and they don't do any real damage, said NAVCIRT officer Lt. Cmdr. Mark Rollins. "It's not illegal for a stranger to check your front door to see if it's locked," he explained. "But if he tries to go in, then he's breaking the law."

Unlike probes, viruses and worms can inflict serious harm on computer networks, he said. A virus is an intrusive program that infects computer files by inserting into those files copies of itself. A worm is a kind of virus that spreads on its own throughout networks, consuming memory or bandwidth and weakening computing power.

This summer, for example, the Navy Marine Corps Intranet was infiltrated by the Welchia worm, which disrupted operations of about two thirds of the 100,000 or so computers in the NMCI system. (related story p. 42) The Welchia worm is described as a "Good Samaritan" virus. Rather than corrupting or deleting individual files, Welchia checks a computer for the Blaster virus that hit the lnternet in August. Then, it tries to check all of the other computers in the domain, disrupting normal wide-area network activity.

It took about two days to clear the worm from the system, said Vice Adm. Richard W. Mayo, head of the command, known as NETWARCOM.

"I think that's a big endorsement for NMCI," he told National Defense. "If we didn't have a coherent network like that, we'd still be clearing that worm out of our computers today."

NETWARCOM's mandate is a broad one, Mayo said. The command is the equivalent to the organizations that oversee the Navy's surface, undersea and air warfare activities, he said. Mayo reports directly to the head of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, at Norfolk, Va.

NETWARCOM, Mayo explained, is the Navy's central authority for network and information operations in support of naval forces afloat and ashore...