Forum addresses Army cyber progress, convergence

By Army Cyber Command Public AffairsOctober 23, 2015

Forum addresses Army cyber progress, convergence
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Lead panelist Lt. Gen. Edward C. Cardon, commanding general, U.S. Army Command and Second Army, and forum moderator Dr. Peter Singer of the New America Foundation, lead the discussion during the 'Army Cyber: Today and Tomorrow' panel forum that was p... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Forum addresses Army cyber progress, convergence
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Soldiers from the Army Cyber Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., demonstrate using a Cyber Capability Rifle to knock down a drone, in the Army Cyber station of the U.S. Army exhibit at this year's Association of the U.S. Army ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 14 -- Army and civilian cybersecurity leaders shared their views on the growth and direction of Army cyber during a panel forum here Oct. 14.

The forum, entitled "Army Cyber: Today and Tomorrow", was one of several Institute of Land Warfare Contemporary Military Forums that were part of this year's Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting.

We've had "tremendous advances in Army Cyber over the last year," said Lt. Gen. Edward C. Cardon, commanding general of U.S. Army Cyber Command and Second Army and lead panelist.

The general cited several examples of the command's growth:

-- from two Cyber Protection Teams in 2013 to 32 today, of the 41 total the Army is building;

-- from a Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber staff of two in 2014, to 123 of 129 positions filled now;

-- the creation of the Cyber Branch, the Army's newest, with approximately 1,000 people assigned;

-- the development of the Army Cyber Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, that has grown from two to 50 people since 2014;

-- the development of the Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Ga., over the past year

"We already have the first parts of the Joint Information Environment appearing," Cardon added. "That's going to really help us protect our networks."

Cardon then opened a primary lines of discussion for the panel -- the convergence of cyber-related disciplines and issues -- by noting how pervasive cyberspace has become.

"When you look at society today and the way that cyberspace has impacted every facet of our society, so, too, has it done to the military," said Cardon.

"It's not cyber for the sake of cyber, but cyber integrated into other means," he said. "It's especially challenging -- information operations, electronic warfare, signals intelligence, network operations. All of that is converging in ways that we would only have dreamed of five years ago. While we've made all this progress over the last year, that technology is moving really fast, and I believe we need to go faster."

Dr. Peter W. Singer, a strategist and senior fellow for the New America Foundation and co-author of "Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know", served as the forum's moderator.

"When today's 20-year-old Soldier, or the insurgent that they are facing, was born, there were fewer than 20,000 websites, compared to the 1.1 billion websites that are out there today," he said.

"The number of total Internet users 20 years ago was 36 million. Today there's more than 3 billion Internet users logged online, living everywhere. But so, too, the risk side has grown."

"How do we win in a complex world?" Singer asked, his question reflecting the theme of the AUSA meeting. "They (the questions) range from recruiting to organization to doctrine to law to ethics."

Panelist Dr. Isaac R. Porche III, associate director of the Forces and Logistics Program at the RAND Arroyo Center called convergence "the effective merging or integration of distinct staffs into a unified whole to achieve decisive results."

"What the Army needs to do for its cyber forces is put the groups that work best together, physically, functionally or both," said Porche.

"Current trends are driving us to convergence -- the information environment is changing faster than Army's processes.

"Issues in cyberspace can be boiled down to two major ingredients: people and technology. The challenges and the opportunities in cyber have come from those two categories."

Panelist Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Fogarty, commanding general of the Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Gordon, Ga., took the discussion of convergence a step further.

"To win in a complex world, Army forces must provide the joint force with multiple options; integrate the efforts of multiple partners; operate across multiple domains; present our enemies and adversaries with multiple dilemmas. This is the heart of the Army's operating concept.

"We're very dependent on satellite communications. We're very dependent with our precision fires with precision navigation and timing. We're very dependent upon our network; very dependent on our ability to have those assured communications."

Though he spoke of the Army's tremendous capabilities, he acknowledged there are also many potential vulnerabilities it must remain vigilant to defend.

"Some of our critical capabilities gaps include cyber situational awareness, defensive cyberspace operational tools, unified cyber platform, offensive electronic attack capabilities and cyber electromagnetic activities collaboration tools," said Fogarty. "As we're working to move toward convergence, we're working to deliver these capabilities to the Army, to have capabilities that we can integrate with other forms of maneuver to deny the enemy's ability to conduct operations in cyberspace while preserving U.S. freedom of action."

Providing the view of convergence from a brigade commander's standpoint, panelist Col. William J. Hartman, commander of the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Meade, Md., said the Army's cyber forces are meeting those challenges now and will continue to tackle them in the future.

"We're moving out on a lot of initiatives," said Hartman. "We're doing a lot of good things for the Army and the joint force."

"We have pieces of 24 teams that have been built or are currently being built, to include combat mission teams supporting Central Command, Africa Command, European Command and Pacific Command. We have National Mission Teams and national Cyber Protection Teams supporting the cyber National Mission Force.

"We have a National Guard Cyber Protection Team supporting our joint mission operations center at Fort Meade. Four of those teams have completed their build. Over the next 12 months, we'll complete the build-out of 16 additional teams and then bring four Fiscal Year 2016 teams to what we call initial operating capability.

"We've talked about interoperability -- from a cyber standpoint, the expeditionary cyber teams that we're deploying are going to be fully integrated with the mission force team from the 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade, with the human intelligence collection teams, psyops teams, the maneuver units. Ultimately it's the synergy between these elements that we believe is going to be most important."

Panelist Maj. Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber National Mission Force, addressed convergence as he looked at the actors and adversaries in cyberspace.

"Let me give you another factor that we're seeing as we maneuver in cyberspace, and many of you have probably also seen," said Nakasone. "Adversaries also understand the idea of 'cheap, fast and easy.' In fact, if you look back at 2015, I think many of you would see a number of different examples of 'cheap, fast and easy.'

"If you look at the Wall Street Journal on Monday, (there is) a great article in terms of what are the cyber actors and what are the cyber arms being developed. It's interesting to note that the Wall Street Journal said that 29 countries have formal military or intel units that are operating on the offensive side.

"There are 50 countries are purchasing off-the-shelf capabilities; perhaps most disconcerting, 24 countries with really advanced cyber weaponry.

"Our adversaries are exploiting known vulnerabilities. They're leveraging phishing attacks where they're able to take private information and they're able to craft very sophisticated spearphishing attempts to get access. There are no requirements in this 'cheap, fast, easy' environment for zero days, because you get access so easily.

"It does come back to commanders' business. This is all commanders' business. They'll drive convergence. They'll be the ones that receive the impacts of convergence. We begin with this idea that commanders have a central role to play in cyberspace."