Leadership: Pacific Fleet Growing Pains
September 1, 2021: The U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, which now controls most of the warships in the U.S. Navy has had a lot of embarrassing personnel and leadership problems in the last decade. These only became visible to the general public when there were major mishaps, like ship collisions or anything that involved loss of life. In 2017 these problems became so bad, and public, that the commander of the Pacific Fleet was fired (relieved) for failure to do his job.
Recently it became public that the Pacific Fleet, which not only most American warships but also most navy personnel and overseas bases, suffered a more serious but generally unpublicized problem. Between 2016 and 2018 Pacific Fleet submarines, and their two support ships (or tenders) did not receive the required computer and computer network security inspections. A recent navy-wide audit of cybersecurity found that COMSUBPAC (Pacific Fleet Submarine Command) was unable to get enough qualified cyber security specialists to carry out the required inspections and deal with any problems discovered. Pacific Fleet policy was to concentrate available network security personnel to service surface ships and land installations, which were connected to the Internet all the time. The submarines had no Internet access most of the time because while at sea the nuclear subs rarely operated on the surface. Submarine crews have limited email access, which means no attachments and low risk of malware getting into the submarine network.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20210901.aspx
