Highly placed champions, including Obama and Panetta, have listed it as a top defense priority. There’s growing awareness that the Pentagon’s traditional military capabilities have become increasingly dependent on information technology and/or its computer systems and networks. An attack on a military IT system could affect the Pentagon’s ability to dispatch a plane or ships to a certain location or launch an offensive strike.

“Many of our military advantages stem from our ability to use the IT better than anyone else in the world,” said Lynn, who stepped down as Panetta’s No. 2 in command earlier this month. “That’s what gives us the ability to navigate precisely, to strike at great distances — it’s the heart of our most modern military capabilities, so we need to make sure we’re able to protect those advantages.”

At the same time, technology is increasingly becoming the target of U.S. foes. “If you’re a smart adversary, you’re going to look to attack our IT networks to try to overcome our military advantages,” Lynn added.

That point needs to be emphasized to budget-slashers, said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), head of the Cybersecurity Task Force. “If you’re looking at the defense budget, you can’t look at it too narrowly and think of it as high-tech guys at a keyboard,” he said. “We’ve gotten to the point where cybersecurity is a part of virtually everything our military does.”

In July, the Pentagon released a cyberstrategy that calls for the department to equip and train personnel to operate effectively in this new domain. As part of this effort, the Pentagon is expected to use new tools — such as sensors, software and signatures — to detect and thwart potential attacks or malicious code before it affects U.S. networks or operations. New practices are also being implemented to protect networks and systems and to prevent personnel from disclosing classified information.

Those defenses are designed to keep up with the quickening pace — and severity — of cyberattacks. The military’s main network is scanned millions of times a day by possible outside intruders, and that rate has “been going steadily upward,” Lynn said. Pentagon networks are hit by thousands of attacks per day, defense officials have said, and more than 100 foreign intelligence agencies are clawing to get into its systems.

So far, hackers have focused on stealing sensitive data about military aircraft, surveillance technologies and network security protocols, Lynn said when the Pentagon strategy was released.

However, there have been some troubling developments. Hackers have proved they can slip past military cyberdefenses and into its systems and networks — both unclassified and classified. Following a news report in Wired about Air Force drone systems being compromised by a virus, the Air Force recently admitted that malware had infected some computers in the ground control system that supports its drone operation.