DISA Exploring How AI, Machine Learning Can Bolster Cybersecurity

The Defense Information Systems Agency plans to strategically use artificial intelligence to enhance its defensive cyber capabilities.

Rear Adm. William Chase III, deputy commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network, said that the threat of malware has grown to become “essentially organized crime on an international scale,” Nextgov reported Monday.

The agency is currently establishing an Office of the Chief Data Officer to catalog the data sources that can be used to train its AI and machine learning algorithms.

DISA Chief Information Officer Roger Greenwell expects the emerging technology to allow security analysts to respond to cyberattacks as they happen.

Greenwell said the agency is still finalizing who will lead the office.

DISA is a combat support agency tasked with maintaining and protecting the DOD’s information-sharing and command and control capabilities.

The scale of the information technology infrastructure that the agency oversees makes it simply “not possible” for its security analysts to maintain visibility into all endpoints, Greenwell said.

DISA previously entered into a cooperated research and development agreement with software company NT Concepts as part of an effort to use AI and machine learning for cybersecurity.

Roy Hendrix, global configuration branch chief at DISA’s Enterprise Engineering and Governance Directorate, said the CRADA is focused on identifying candidate technologies that can strengthen the Pentagon’s information network.