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Critical battlefields of the future will not be on the sands of Iwo Jima or the mountains of Afghanistan. Tomorrows critical battle spaces will be over the interconnected pathways of cyberspace. The National Guard is preparing for the challenges of cyber warfare with a new generation of patriots standing to answer the call of duty.
There are many new faces among the hundreds of Army National Guard, Air National Guard and Army Reserve network defenders that are gathered at Camp Atterbury, Ind., for a week of cyber training, seminars and lab work designed to keep our state and local computer networks and critical infrastructure safe. Cyber Shield 19 is an Army National Guard-sponsored event that provides critical experience for the members of the National Guard Cyber Protections Teams (CPT), Defensive Cyber Operations Elements (DCOE) and Cyber Mission Assurance Teams (CMAT.)
Having these new cyber warriors here to train is a welcome sign of change for the veterans of the cyber security industry - an industry struggling with a lack of capable cyber professionals.
“One of the toughest things right now is that the cyber security industry is one of the few industries where there is negative unemployment,” said Dave Bush, Stealthwatch Instructor for CISCO. “There a lot more jobs than there are people for it. So the more people we can expose to the tools CISCO has, the better prepared people can be for working anywhere. This is important because we need them.”
“We’re here to support the operation because we’ve got our hands in the pot just like everybody else,” said Taven Brown, Stealthwatch instructor, CISCO.
“The training we’ve got participants going through during the first week is introducing the suite of tools that we have. We have labs that the students are going through that highlight what these tools bring to the table. This helps them do their jobs better by helping identify the different security incidents, which allows them to respond at a quicker pace to fix network vulnerabilities as they are found.”
The level of involvement by the exercise’s industry partners and the level of cyber field expertise creates a challenging environment for the cyber team’s newest members.
“It’s kind of hard for the beginners of cyber,” said Airman 1st Class Riley Robinette, a Cyber Security Specialist with the 121th Cyber Operating Squadron, Pennsylvania Air National Guard. “I’m only 20 coming into the Air Force out of high school so I don’t have any IT experience, so any experience is good experience. You don’t really have a lot to go on and it’s really complicated so it’s hard to do especially without experience.”
The training, labs and seminars available to the cyber teams’ members at Cyber Shield 19 becomes critical experience for these new cyber warriors.
“We really try to focus on getting people prepared for cyber defense,” said Col. Teri Williams, Commander, Cyber Shield 19. “There are a lot of people we bring to the table for that first week of training. Microsoft, CISCO and SANS for some of the cyber defensive training. The International Society of Automation (ISA) does infrastructure network training. But we also focus on the offensive side. Our belief is that the better that you are trained on the offensive side the stronger a defender you will be. So we use companies like SpectreOps to come in and give us that offensive training.”
Much of this training is required for certification in network defense. The opportunity for these participants to get this training during their annual training period is especially valuable for the states who send their cyber team participants to Cyber Shield. The participants here know this and the level of participation and the enthusiasm is very high.
“A lot of the states don’t have the money to send their Soldiers to some of these classes that we’re administering here,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 George Roman, Governance and Policy Engineer, National Guard Bureau. “So some of these guys are hungry with the SANS courses, with the seminars. There was a volunteer SANS seminar with Robert Lee and people packed that joint over there. I was really impressed.”
As the training week comes to a close, the participants are eager to put their new knowledge to the test on Cyber Shield’s range during the exercise portion of the event. In the second week of Cyber Shield 19 each state’s team will conduct cyber defective operations like vulnerability assessments and incident repose in a contested cyber environment.
“This is only my second cyber exercise. My unit has a small one about a month back, but it is still in its infancy. So this is my first real exercise. I’m excited to get in the exercise, get fingers on keyboard, you know boots on ground, that kind of stuff. That’s always the fun part,” said Robinette.
The anticipation continues to grow during the final days of Cyber Shield 19’s training week. Soon the teams will finish their course work and will break into their teams. The newest Soldiers will take their places among the cyber veterans from their state. They will prepare the weapons of their trade; their computers and network analytic software suites. But nothing will prepare them more for the cyber battle space they are expected to operate in than the type of knowledge that they have begun to obtain here at Cyber Shield 19.
| Date Taken: | 04.12.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.12.2019 16:30 |
| Story ID: | 317970 |
| Location: | IN, US |
| Web Views: | 192 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, The Next Generation of Cyber Warriors are Trained at Cyber Shield 19, by George Davis, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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