The National Security Agency is establishing a new cybersecurity directorate in a push to realign its organizational structure to improve the battle against online threats facing the United States.

The plan, unveiled this morning, will be put into action in the coming months. The directorate is set to start operations at the beginning of October under the leadership of NSA official Anne Neuberger. Neuberger previously served as the agency’s chief risk officer, a position created to prevent leaks after the Edward Snowden exposés, and earlier held other senior roles, including deputy director of operations.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the new group will replace the NSA’s information assurance directorate. That unit had a narrow mandate to sensitive national security systems from hackers. When it starts working in October, the cybersecurity directorate will have the dual responsibility of protecting U.S. information technology assets and collecting intelligence about foreign cyberthreats.

The move to bring defensive and offensive cybersecurity activities together under the same group is part of a broader integration effort at the NSA. According to the Journal, it’s an initiative already several years in the works that was sped up after General Paul Nakasone became NSA director last May. Nakasone also heads U.S. Cyber Command and the Central Security Service.

The formation of the cybersecurity directorate comes as the U.S. faces increasingly sophisticated cyber adversaries. Nakasone’s predecessor, General Keith Alexander, discussed the challenge last month in an extensive interview on SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. The former NSA director described a fast-evolving threat landscape where the boundary between nation-state activities and cybercrime is blurring. 

“Some of the nation-state actors are also criminals at night so they can use nation-state tools,” Alexander told theCUBE co-hosts John Furrier and Rebecca Knight. “My concern about the evolution of cyberthreats is that the attacks are getting more destructive, the malware has more legs, and the impact on our commercial sector and our nation is increasingly bigger.”

Alexander flagged intellectual property theft as an especially grave concern. “I think the biggest impact to our country is the theft of intellectual property,” he said. “Imagine that every idea that we have, somebody else is stealing, making a product out of it, competing with us, and beating us.”

According to Alexander, fending off online threats going forward will require the government to gain better visibility into cyberattacks against private sector companies. He cited the infamous Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. breach as an example. Staying one step ahead of hackers at the national level is a daunting task, Alexander said, but “it’s doable. We can do this.” 

Photo: NSA