Information superiority, a mandate of U.S. defense transformational objectives and the QDR, assures that the right people receive the right information at the right time in the right format for use, while our adversaries are denied the same advantages. In the parlance of DoD information security protects this "assurance."

The availability of information and ability to distribute it for shared use significantly enhances military effectiveness and improves mission efficiencies by

• Increasing the speed of command and enabling a higher operational tempo
• Giving greater lethality
• Reducing collateral damage and friendly fire incidents
• Increasing survivability
• Streamlining combat support
• Improving tooth-to-tail effectiveness
• Providing more efficient force synchronization across the battle space

Sharing of situation related information promotes the capability for collaborative decision making and sharing of commanders' intents and implemented plans and enables synchronization of actions dynamically in response to developing battle actions to take advantage of opportunities as they occur.

As advances in information technology increase our information superiority with interconnected business processes and network centric tactical assets, the need for defensive measures to protect critical cyber assets and infrastructures becomes paramount. This drives improved security operations, adoption of public key or like infrastructures, integrated attack sensing and warning capabilities, conduct of computer forensics and the ability to leverage Information Assurance.

DoD information doctrine generally comprises the following hierarchy of terms

• Information Superiority - a DoD capstone term to establish a goal of free operation of information systems in a dominant manner analogous to air superiority or naval superiority.
• Information Assurance (IA) - the most encompassing form of confidence in one's security as it relates to the integrity of information from its inception. IA protects the information and all the elements that exist to capture, transport, store and utilize it. IA focuses on the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of information. Information Assurance at the enterprise level includes
  • Plans
  • Policy
  • Architecture
  • Services
  • Certification and accreditation
  • Monitoring and incident response
  • Education and training
  • Enterprise security program management
• Information Security (IS) - focuses on the protection of the infrastructure and is a sub-element of IA, though the two terms are often colloquially interchanged. In DoD programmatics IS is often used as to define the overarching objective. Within information security we often deal with Network Security (NS) that encompasses devices that secure the network including firewalls and intrusion detection systems.
• Critical Infrastructure Protection - an IA function achieved through IS and NS

The DoD achieves Information Superiority through a combination of offensive and defensive Information Warfare (IW) executed as a series of Information Operations (IO). Offensive operations are rarely publicly acknowledged or alluded to, while defensive operations often are built on militarized versions of standard IA techniques and IS and NS tools and technology. In its purest form IW encompasses much more than cyber related functions and includes such traditional entities as electronic warfare, physical destruction, operations security and elements of counter intelligence. The purest practitioners of IW within DoD are more focused on topics aligned with IW than the areas of interest to civilian agencies.

There are two types of Information Assurance markets within the DoD definitions - Information Assurance and Information Warfare. The IW market is further subdivided into offensive and defensive operations. CACI's IA services are an element of the defensive IA domain.

CACI has an established policy and the ability to maintain technological supremacy, operations proficiency and performance excellence. The labor market for IA proficient that meet our standards is very constrained and competitive. A significant time investment in time and dollars is required to train new staff to CACI's standards. Our clients trust CACI to ensure the integrity of their information infrastructure. More than in most other lines of business, substandard work or a mistake by inadequately trained staff can be disastrous. Consequently, CACI's focus remains on solid performance.