THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WASHINGTON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 2 0 DEC I988 Honorable William Verity Secretary of Commerce Washington Di 20230 Dear Bill Shortly after the Internet computer virus attack which was first detected on November 2 1988 we formed an executive after action assessment team within the Department of Defense The team met on November 14 1988 and reviewed the events and actions taken after detection of the virus on ARPANET and reviewed the report by the National Computer Security Center titled Proceedings of the Virus Post Mortem Meeting November 8 1988 Enclosure reviewed the DARPA report on the technical characteristics of the virus Enclosure and concluded with recommendations for improving the Department's responsiveness to future attacks As you will see xnn the team's report to me Enclosure 3 the two areas on which we need to focus are the development of a central national level coordination center and increased computer security awareness It became quickly evident during their analysis that the actions that need to be taken in the unclassified domain should_be addressed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST and the National Computer Security Center NCSC with technical coordination from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency I have requested that each of the Defense Components involved in the after action assessment support the recommendations on a priority basis In tasking the National Security Agency I have asked that the NCSC be ready to work with the staff of NIST to address quickly the establishment of a central coordination center and the publication and wide distribution of computer security lessons learned from this incident I solicit your personal support for this effort and ask that we move rapidly to improve our national posture to deal with potential computer security problems in the future Sincerely Enclosures ibr As Stated This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu