NCTC Deputy Director John Mulligan spoke before a crowd of about 2,000 defense and intelligence professionals as well as industry partners at the Department of Defense Intelligence Information System (DoDIIS) Worldwide Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, Aug. 15. The theme of this year's event was "Dominating Cyberspace Against Persistent Threats."
Continuing the conversation from Director Nick Rasmussen's appearance at the event last year, Mulligan discussed the current terrorism landscape, characterizing the cyber threat as NCTC views it in the Center's CT mission space.
For the most part, terrorists hacking capabilities have been limited, Mulligan said. However, while hacking is not at the top of the NCTC cyber threat list, Mulligan said he is concerned groups like ISIS capitalize on commonly available technologies to amplify their narrative and communicate with followers online.
To address this, he pointed to what NCTC brings to the CT fight: the Center's access to data. Mulligan explained how this access as well as the Center’s partnerships position the Center and its partners to accomplish the counterterrorism mission.
He also pointed to some the challenges that exist when handling multiple data streams in a variety of formats, highlighting some of the steps NCTC is taking to address the Center's data management needs. This includes embracing the cloud.
DoDIIS Worldwide is hosted annually by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The full video can be found here.