The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is planning to start a radical overhaul, perhaps the largest in its 70-year history, which will put cyber operations front-and-center.
Notably, CIA director John Brennan said that the spy agency will establish a Directorate of Digital Innovation, focused on using cyber technology to gather intelligence. It will have equal status within the agency with the four other traditional directorates.
Those are the Directorate of Science and Technology, which is responsible for spy gear and gadgets, and the Directorate of Support, which lives up to its name and handles administrative and logistical tasks. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Intelligence will be renamed Directorate of Analysis, and will continue to collate and analyze information from secret and open sources. And the National Clandestine Service, which carries out covert operations and manages human spies and spooks, will be renamed the Directorate of Operations.
Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that the move hauls the agency, created at the dawn of the Cold War, into the modern era.
"This reorganization was driven not by any institutional failure, but by the realization that the world has changed over the course of the last 70 years. In many ways, the Director’s proposal is long overdue," Burr told Reuters.
Brett Fernicola, chief information security officer with STEALTHbits Technologies, drew the point more finely.
“We are entering into a new era in history where wars may soon be fought by keyboard and mouse. We have already seen examples of this today with drones and their early security breaches,” he said in an email to media. “The digital arms race is in full swing, soon people will more fear the country who can push a button and turn off your power remotely, not who has the most nukes."
Brennan, speaking to reporters, said that the move was also an effort to address the spiraling complexity and data generation growth at work in an all-digital landscape.
"Our ability to carry out our responsibilities for human intelligence and national security responsibilities has become more challenging,” Brennan said. "And so what we need to do as an agency is make sure we’re able to understand all of the aspects of that digital environment."
To that end, the CIA will also establish 10 new "mission centers" that will work cross-agency to target specific intelligence areas. Two existing centers focus on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence. The hope is to break down siloes between need-to-know agencies and to prevent critical information from falling through bureaucratic cracks.
"I know there are seams right now, but what we’ve tried to do with these mission centers is cover the entire universe, regionally and functionally, and so something that’s going on in the world falls into one of those buckets," Brennan said.
Fernicola added that the move is a savvy one, given that other nations have embraced cyber-espionage wholeheartedly.
“It’s no secret that other nations such as China run and operate state sponsored hacker colleges hoping to find their next Neo,” he said. “Keeping our operatives safe whether at home or abroad should always be top priority. Having the skills and technology to remain stealth is a key advantage over your adversaries, just look at the success of the Stealth Fighter. It’s about time these same principles are applied to the digital format.”