Army Cyber Command Focuses on Protecting Vital Networks

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2011 — Warfight­ers oper­at­ing on the front lines in Afghanistan and else­where around the world, can be con­fi­dent that a corps of “cyber war­riors” has their backs, and is work­ing to pro­tect the com­put­er sys­tems they depend on, a senior mil­i­tary offi­cial report­ed.

Less than a year after it stood up Oct. 1, Army Cyber Com­mand is lead­ing a corps of 21,000 sol­diers and civil­ians who serve world­wide oper­at­ing and defend­ing all Army net­works, Army Lt. Gen. Rhett A. Her­nan­dez, its com­man­der, told Amer­i­can Forces Press Service. 

Her­nan­dez over­sees a 24/7 oper­a­tion that, oper­at­ing under the U.S. Cyber Com­mand umbrel­la, is respon­si­ble for defend­ing the largest piece of the Defense Depart­ment glob­al infra­struc­ture grid. 

In sim­plest terms, Army Cyber Com­mand pro­vides secu­ri­ty for these net­works so com­man­ders, regard­less of their loca­tion, can com­mu­ni­cate with their own forces, high­er head­quar­ters and oth­er ele­ments, he explained. 

“We are oper­at­ing and defend­ing all the [Army] net­works, regard­less of where they are – from our instal­la­tions world­wide, in gar­ri­son, in a field envi­ron­ment, all the way to the tac­ti­cal edge where our sol­diers are engaged in com­bat oper­a­tions,” he said. 

This capa­bil­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal to com­bat troops, whose mis­sions – and lives – depend on infor­ma­tion and intel­li­gence these net­works pro­vide. “With­out it, they would be hard-pressed to con­duct the oper­a­tions they are doing,” Her­nan­dez said, “because cyber real­ly enables mis­sion com­mand,” as well as sol­diers’ abil­i­ty to car­ry out their commander’s intent. 

“We are allow­ing them to oper­ate in an envi­ron­ment that gives them the infor­ma­tion they need to do that,” he said. “Our job is to ensure they have those enabling capa­bil­i­ties they need to be successful.” 

Mean­while, Army Cyber Com­mand has the capa­bil­i­ty, when direct­ed, to ensure troops have free­dom of move­ment in cyber­space, and to deny that access to adversaries. 

Ten months since start­ing from “what I would call scratch,” Her­nan­dez said, he’s proud of the new com­mand that has emerged and the increased oper­a­tional focus it brings to the dai­ly defense of Army networks. 

“That’s not to say we were not defend­ing our net­works in the past,” he said. “But with an oper­a­tional view of what we need to do to ensure we are doing all we can pos­si­bly do to defend our net­work, I believe we have made tremen­dous strides.” 

Her­nan­dez attrib­uted much of that suc­cess to close coop­er­a­tion and shar­ing with­in Army Cyber Com­mand, the sis­ter ser­vice cyber com­mands and U.S. Cyber Command. 

“You get an unprece­dent­ed uni­ty of effort across the board,” he said. “It is not only ser­vicewide, but it is hor­i­zon­tal, between the oth­er ser­vices, and it is ver­ti­cal, between [U.S.] Cyber Com­mand and the services. 

“So you can imag­ine the syn­er­gy that comes from that … as you con­duct oper­a­tions in defense of your net­works every day,” he added. 

This syn­er­gy is crit­i­cal, he said, in keep­ing ahead of a com­plex, rapid­ly chang­ing cyber threat. “When I think about where we are today, the [focus] is not so much what it is we are able to do to oper­ate and defend our net­works today,” he said. “It is what we have to do to ensure we are able to oper­ate and defend against an evolv­ing, chang­ing and grow­ing threat.” 

Toward that end, Her­nan­dez is address­ing the acqui­si­tion process, press­ing to make it more respon­sive and to ensure that cyber­se­cu­ri­ty gets fac­tored into buy­ing decisions. 

Major equip­ment acqui­si­tions that take five to sev­en years just won’t cut it in keep­ing ahead of evolv­ing cyber threats, the gen­er­al said. “We real­ly need capa­bil­i­ties that we can bring to the force in 12 to 18 months,” he said, even if it means accept­ing incre­men­tal solu­tions rather than wait­ing for per­fect ones. 

Mean­while, cyber threats have brought new con­sid­er­a­tions to acqui­si­tion deci­sions. “In the past, we had a mind­set, ‘Let’s just increase the capa­bil­i­ty we pro­vide to the field, regard­less of the poten­tial threats that might be with them,” Her­nan­dez said. “But I think in the future, we need to ensure that the things that we are build­ing have to bet­ter defend our net­works to ensure we main­tain the abil­i­ty to operate.” 

But ulti­mate­ly, Her­nan­dez called peo­ple the cen­ter­piece of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and cyberde­fense. He’s work­ing to pro­mote train­ing and leader devel­op­ment across the ranks to improve the Army’s abil­i­ty to work with­in the cyber­space domain. 

That’s essen­tial, he said, not only for the grow­ing corps of spe­cial­ized cyber-war­riors, but for all sol­diers and Army civil­ian employ­ees who access and rely on mil­i­tary net­works to do their job. 

“We are talk­ing across the board,” Her­nan­dez said. “So we are try­ing to cre­ate a 21st-cen­tu­ry train­ing envi­ron­ment that brings togeth­er home-sta­tion train­ing as well as field train­ing to ensure that sol­diers [and] lead­ers can train in that [cyber] environment.” 

Mean­while, Her­nan­dez empha­sized the role every sol­dier and Depart­ment of the Army civil­ian plays in pro­mot­ing cybersecurity. 

“Every user needs to under­stand and appre­ci­ate that every time they enter the net — regard­less of what that net is, whether it is the Inter­net, an Army or mil­i­tary net – they are enter­ing a con­test­ed envi­ron­ment,” he said. “And oth­ers are work­ing to take that free­dom to oper­ate either away from them, or away from us. … So it is crit­i­cal that [they] ensure they do those things that will pro­tect [them­selves] and pro­tect the rest of the force.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)