On August 1, 2011, IT blog ITProPortal reported that General Michael Hayden, former Director of both the CIA and NSA, suggested that the US Government should create a "Digital Blackwater." Blackwater (renamed Xe Services LLC) refers to the US private military group linked with controversies resulting from its security-related operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
General Hayden suggested that cyber mercenaries “might be one of those big new ideas in terms of how we have to conduct ourselves in this new cyber domain.” The General continued by saying “we may come to a point where defense is more actively and aggressively defined even for the private sector and what is permitted there is something that we would never let the private sector do in physical space."
Although recruiting whitehat hackers is nothing new, General Hayden suggested externalising the process of cyberwarfare away from the US government and towards private military companies.
The General gave his remarks at the Aspen Security Forum, with video found below and on YouTube.
The original ITProPortal article can be found here.
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