Subscribe
He is a villain to those guarding the training network. He is a hero to the cyber warriors trying to become like him. How can one person wield so much power within the realm of Cyber Shield 2022?
Aaron Rosenmund, a technical sergeant with the Florida Air National Guard’s 125th Fighter Wing, could be seen as both a hero and a villain during Cyber Shield 2022. He served as the civilian-lead “opposing force” during the exercise, which ran from June 5-17 at the Army National Guard’s Professional Education Center at Camp Joseph Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Military Cyber Professionals Association says Rosenmund is a hero. The association awarded Rosenmund the “Order of Thor” award during Cyber Shield 2022 for “excellence in and special contributions to the American military cyber community,” according to the MCPA website. “It is inspired by the mythological warrior who wields a hammer that (like cyberspace) has the power to both build and destroy.”
“Aaron is a hero villain,” said Illinois Army National Guard Lt. Col. Jeff Fleming, the officer-in-charge of Cyber Shield 2022. “By day, he’s smiley and hard to miss in his GQ wardrobe. By night, after energy drinks sipped from his IronCat coffee mug, he turns into the evilest of villains mashing out purely evil custom badness.”
Rosenmund “then stands while holding his mug and chuckles as he hurls the code through cyberspace at the blue teams and watches them struggle,” Fleming added. “But he IS the reason Cyber Shield participants receive the best training.”
It is the custom code that Rosenmund writes for Cyber Shield that dodges boilerplate patches or software updates that gives him his superpowers. It makes those learning to defend the network work extra hard to find Rosenmund’s creations through the ones and zeros of the digital world and the smoke of social media disinformation.
Rosenmund is the Director of Security Research and Curriculum for Pluralsight in his civilian life. He holds more than 10 security certifications, has written over 100 publications, has mastered strange-sounding computer languages, and has spent countless hours dedicated to the military exercise. He has earned a spot among the legends of Cyber Shield.
Illinois Army National Guard Lt. Col. Mark Leuken, the officer-in-charge of the “Red Team” – the exercise’s opposing force – was asked whether Rosenmund was a hero or villain.
“It doesn’t matter, he’s the best. You only learn by competing with those better than you,” he said.
Rosenmund goes by the moniker “Iron Cat” at Cyber Shield. This year Iron Cat wreaked havoc behind the safe confines of the Army’s Persistent Cyber Training Environment. He created the infamous Ironcat ransomeware, exercise’s main event supply-chain attack, as well as many other headaches for the cyber defenders.
Hero or villain, he promises to return. “Iron Cat will be back. This will not be the last you have seen of Iron Cat. We are one, and the same.”
Cyber Shield, the nation’s premiere unclassified cyber training exercise, involves more than 800 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, civilian experts, and other military services from throughout the nation along with interagency partners from all levels of government and cyber leaders ranging from high-tech corporations to local utilities.
The exercise is conducted at the unclassified level to allow greater participation. The exercise is a result of the National Guard’s commitment to defend critical infrastructure from the growing threat of cyber assaults. The mission of Cyber Shield is to develop, train and exercise cyber forces in the areas of computer network internal defensive measures and cyber incident response. These capabilities facilitate National Guard Cyber Teams’ abilities to conduct missions to coordinate, train and assist federal, state and industry network owners that are threatened by cyberattack.
| Date Taken: | 06.19.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 06.19.2022 14:34 |
| Story ID: | 423346 |
| Location: | NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR, US |
| Web Views: | 512 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cyber Shield 2022’s Aaron Rosenmund: A Hero or a Villain? “Red Team” Figure, Florida Air National Guard Member, Wins Prestigious Order of Thor Award, by CPT Clarissa Estrada, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
LEAVE A COMMENT