Photo By Master Sgt. Rachelle Morris | Tech Sgt. Erica Perry, 5th Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron systems administrator,...... read more read more
More than 50 joint service members from across 18 units gathered in Hawaii for the Cyber Kaua’i Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) support activity, conducting a full-scope vulnerability assessment with penetration testing to help increase the cybersecurity of Kaua’i County’s network and data across 16 agencies.
The mission saved the community partner more than $660,000 in fair market value costs and, in turn, allowed participants to complete 1,583 training and qualification tasks.
“When this opportunity was presented to me, I said, ‘I got to jump on that band wagon,’” said Staff Sgt. Steven Orozco, Cyber Kaua’i network lead. “This is the stuff that I signed up for, that I wanted to do when I joined the military, but I wasn't able to do until now. We are here in Kaua’i to defend and protect this network…identify the loopholes in this current environment, as well as mitigate the attack factors.”
Among the participants were members of the Air Force, Space Force, Army National Guard, Air National Guard, and the Air Force Reserve. They represented more than 14 cyber and intelligence career fields.
“No matter how safe and secure you think your environment is, there are always vulnerabilities that will be discovered,” said Mike Hartig, County of Kaua’i IT specialist. “There's only one of me … to have a group of this size banging on the network for eight hours a day - you can't replace that. Any chance I have to make things better and safer, I'd be foolish to turn it down.”
While most participants focused on infiltrating the community partner’s infrastructure digitally, there were a handful who also trained on physical penetration testing.
“The physical penetration testing is to check on the security of a location to make sure that we can't physically walk into the organization as if we're supposed to be there,” said Tech. Sgt. Ryan Cameron, Cyber Kauai physical penetration team member. “We can get caught at any moment, but we have little cards that say, ‘reach out to this person, this is a test, we're supposed to be doing this, we're helping you guys out.’”
While Hartig admits having imperfections pointed out is not easy, he said it is worth it in the end.
“Nobody wants to have someone come in and look under the sheets and, you know, point out your flaws, but there's no better way to get resolution,” he said.
The service members found it equally beneficial.
“It's really given me a more holistic understanding of what I do,” said Staff Sgt. Noah Smith, Cyber Kauai physical penetration team member. “There are definitely things I've learned here that I'll be able to take back and kind of improve our mission at home.”
| Date Taken: | 05.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.14.2025 15:14 |
| Story ID: | 542741 |
| Location: | HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 66 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Service members attack Kaua’i County’s network, data, by MSgt Rachelle Morris, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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