All three NNSA Laboratories have shared their unique capabilities for use in addressing the cyber threat that senior leaders in DOE/NNSA have declared to be the most serious threat we face. Their assessment reflected the high probability and high consequence of cyber/information attacks on our vital and often interconnected information infrastructures. This threat assessment places new emphasis and importance on NNSA cyber/information capabilities and why those capabilities came into being.

Specifically, more than ever any nation’s ability to accomplish its goals is dependent on interconnected information systems. At the same time, increased spans of control established to create greater efficiencies have created greater vulnerabilities. Ill-defined, unknown or abstract operational envelopes exist on all systems and networks. Increased military emphasis on top-down control can create new vulnerabilities and now the “fog of war” might be corrupted information systems upon which success and victory had depended. In addition, cyber attacks can be carried out at all levels of understanding and the tools used to carry out nefarious acts are rapidly mutating faster than our combined defenses against them.

Specifically, the imperative that nuclear weapons designed and engineered by NNSA and its predecessor organizations be absolutely predictable and under absolute command and control has established truly unique capabilities at the three Laboratories. These capabilities have kept track of and in many cases led the development of information security and reliability. Certification of nuclear weapons in the absent of testing further spurred the development of advanced computers, codes, and information processing science and technologies within the NNSA Laboratories. This quest was not for the fastest computer but for the fastest computer and codes that could best contribute to understanding the complex physical and material processes down to the quantum molecular level that could determine device reliability. These advances at the NNSA Laboratories have been realized within the global information revolution that has transformed the way all humans think, act, and operate.