Photo By Staff Sgt. Matthew Ard | Maj. Gen. Jefferson Burton, the adjutant general of the Utah Army National Guard,...... read more read more
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CAMP WILLIAMS, UTAH (May 5, 2017)—More than 100 members of the Utah National Guard joined nearly 800 Soldiers, Airmen and civilians from over 44 states at Camp Williams, Utah, for Exercise Cyber Shield 17, the National Guard’s premier cyber defense training event, which ends today.
Cyber Shield, which began April 23, is part of the National Guard’s ongoing effort to improve the Guard’s readiness to respond to real-world cyber incidents. This the first time Utah has hosted the event.
“We see the value and the need and so we’re going to do whatever we can to make this exercise a reality today and in the future,” said Maj. Gen. Jefferson Burton, the adjutant general of Utah. “It’s so important to our country and to our military that we do this and that we share best practices.”
Burton made his way around Camp Williams during the exercise, and spoke with key leaders about the importance of cybersecurity training.
James Gunter, exercise director for Cyber Shield 17, who also works as the information technology strategy division chief for the National Guard Bureau, expressed gratitude to the adjutant general and his staff for their efforts in planning and preparing for the exercise.
“General Burton has made his staff available to take care of any issue, and his officers and NCOs have stepped up and provided what’s needed,” Gunter said. “The support from Utah has been phenomenal.”
Camp Williams is home to the 640th Regiment Regional Training Institute, which offers a variety of courses to Soldiers, including military intelligence.
In addition to hosting the exercise at the Camp Williams training facility, the Utah National Guard has been providing a wide range of support, including food services, facility maintenance, a team to oversee the large number of senior military and government officials who visited to observe the exercise and a “mayor’s cell” that oversaw the community of exercise participants living at Camp Williams. Utah Guardsmen also participated directly in the exercise as computer forensics experts, military network defense teams and teams of online adversaries playing the role of hostile hackers.
“The Utah Army National Guard has gone above and beyond in many ways providing billeting, a dining facility; to include improving their facilities for this exercise. Plus, they’ve provided transportation to and from the airport, and vehicles that Soldiers [and Airmen] can check out,” Gunter added. “They’ve provided more than what we’ve asked for.”
Gunter emphasized the importance of strengthening network cybersecurity and developing the Guard’s capabilities by improving collaboration between members of the National Guard, U.S. Army Reserve and civilians from private companies, state government agencies, federal agencies, industry partners and academia.
“The most important thing that we gain out of these exercises is collaboration and trust between our partners,” said Lt. Col. Henry Capello, exercise commander for Cyber Shield 17, who is also a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard. “Utah has done a fabulous job. Not only did they help host with their facilities, but they also went the extra mile helping us find some training vendors to come out here and help us fill the gap with some of our training needs.”
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rick Gardner, installation officer in charge for Cyber Shield 17, spoke about the magnitude of the planning efforts as well as some of the challenges involved with bringing the people, organizations and resources together.
“We knew we had an installation suitable for hosting the exercise,” said Gardner, he later added that, “we could offer the capability to provide a first-class cyber operations exercise.”
“It was quite challenging honestly—to put it all together and the power requirements took augmenting and enhancing power in many locations, and we did quite a bit in the way of upgrading our infrastructure to accommodate this number of students,” he said.
Gardner was able to use a variety of equipment that was being phased out and put that equipment to good use for the exercise in order to lower costs and save tax payers money. “We contributed and were able to reduce the overall amount that needed to be funded substantially,” Gardner said.
“We have come up with approximately 1200 computers for this exercise,” Gardner stated. “About 600 of the 1200 are old life-cycled computers.”
Gardner also spoke about how the planning process proved vital toward establishing initial communication between the Guard and all of the contributing organizations which, in effect, proved to be an unforeseen benefit to cyber readiness.
The National Guard is working closely with its interagency partners and the private sector to strengthen network cybersecurity and capabilities to support local responses to cyber incidents.
Cyber Shield is designed to provide real-world scenarios in order to improve key relationships.
The National Guard is committed to strengthening network cyber security and developing capabilities to respond to cyber incidents.
By Staff Sgt. Matthew Ard and Lt. Col Wayde Minami
| Date Taken: | 05.01.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.01.2017 16:54 |
| Story ID: | 232180 |
| Location: | UT, US |
| Web Views: | 274 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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