The House Armed Services Committee could tackle the possibility of elevating the status of the U.S. Cyber Command to a unified combatant command level as part of the panel’s markup of the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill, Breaking Defense reported Friday.
Colin Clark and Sydney Freedberg Jr. write the committee also plans to ask the Defense Department to study if it is feasible for Cybercom and the National Security Agency to have separate leaders.
Lt. Gen. James McLaughlin, deputy commander of Cybercom, told Breaking Defense last week the organization currently uses a centralized approach to manage operations of the DoD Information Network and that existing combatant commands have cyber defense tools.
“We are now working specifically…. to clarify how we actually [work with] the combatant commands and how our command integrates directly into those commands,” he added, the publication reports.
