NSA Opens Doors for Local Businesses - Baltimore Business Journal 08/26/10

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Daniel J. Sernovitz
Baltimore Business Journal
August 26, 2010

The National Security Agency lifted its veil of secrecy Wednesday evening to host a crowd of 400 business and community leaders at Fort George G. Meade.

The code-cracking arm of the Pentagon held the rare event to forge closer ties with Greater Baltimore.

NSA Director Keith B. Alexander told the crowd his agency’s reliance on the region’s businesses community will become even greater in the coming years as the threats facing the nation’s electronic systems and data expand in number and severity.

“We can’t say how big it is without getting into classified information, but it is huge,” Alexander said. “We can’t do it without industry support.”

Alexander was appointed head of U.S. Cyber Command in May and has been working since then to assemble the framework for the umbrella organization of military cyber warriors.

The new agency should be fully operational by October with a staff of about 1,100, Alexander said. Most of those employees already work at Fort Meade. But that is just the start, and Cyber Command will be reliant on a broad range of private businesses, Alexander said.

That dependence prompted the NSA to host Wednesday’s NSA State and Local Partner Reception. The two-hour networking event was coordinated with the Fort Meade Alliance, an organization of business and community groups that support the Anne Arundel military base. Alexander, appearing in military fatigue, spoke briefly to the crowd but then left to attend another meeting.

Read more:  NSA opens doors for local businesses - Baltimore Business Journal

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