FORT EISENHOWER, Ga. — Four Army Cyber Command Soldiers' contributions to national security have earned them the first awards of a new ARCYBER form of recognition with a peculiar name.
Sgt. Phillip Lorentz, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Jackson and Capt. Zachary Fennell of the Army Cyber Protection Brigade at Fort Eisenhower, and Capt. William K. Born of the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Meade, Maryland, are ARCYBER's first recipients of the Cyber Peculiar Award, or CyPAw.
Authorized by public law in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, CyPAw is a monetary award that recognizes performance by a military member "whose novel actions, invention, technical or policy achievement enables operational outcomes across cyberspace to strengthen national security."
Lorentz, Jackson and Fennel earned the award for a two-year collaboration that resulted in the creation of Cerebro, a program that enhances defensive cyber operations by streamlining mission planning processes that Army Cyber Protection Team members had been completing manually.
Jackson explained that the program saves time needed to identify and apply detection methods and provides a space to curate and refine analytics. Cerebro helps cybersecurity professionals plan missions with insight into up-to-date tactics, techniques and procedures, and has received positive feedback from other organizations within the DoD cyber community of interest.
Fennell said the award proves that the Army values the creative tools and solutions developed by its own talented cyber warriors.
"As a cyber capabilities developer, it shows that the Army recognizes and wants to incentivize our efforts to create innovative cyber capabilities for the force, rather than rely solely on private sector vendors," he said.
Born, a cyberspace capabilities developer, was recognized for leading the development and delivery of multiple cyber capabilities that support U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber National Mission Force and have directly enabled the success of top priority CNMF missions.
Col. Benjamin Sangster, who commanded the 780th at the time the awardees were nominated and announced, said the award is a demonstration of the caliber of the brigade’s Soldiers.
“It is truly a landmark event, recognizing a talented Army officer’s contribution to defending our country,” Sangster said. “Capt. Will Born is an outstanding example of our cyberspace capability developers, a highly talented team of world-class technicians who could easily work for industry. Instead, they have volunteered to serve our country, defending our way of life.”
When asked what he might say to other Soldiers to inspire them to take on similar projects, Born said, “Opportunity for operational impact is abundant in the Cyber Mission Force, but the most fruitful avenues are not always apparent at first. With persistence, relationship building, and a commitment to maximizing contributions as a team, success will follow.”
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U.S. Army Cyber Command integrates and conducts cyberspace operations, electromagnetic warfare, and information operations, ensuring decision dominance and freedom of action for friendly forces in and through the cyber domain and the information dimension, while denying the same to our adversaries.
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