The Air Force is sending out the batsignal — on cyber, that is.
The Air Force is reviving its annual information technology conference in Montgomery, Alabama, which has been dormant since 2012 due to sequestration budget constraints, and. But the rebranded event conference has a new focus on cybersecurity and big aspirations.
Air Force leaders are encouraging airmen and officers with all sorts of job descriptions, not just cyber professionals, to In a newly revived and augmented cyber conference, airmen — from cyber experts to space controllers and even pilots — are encouraged attend and build relationships with their counterparts cyber experts in the private sector industry. The reason? So both sectors can move forward together they can to defend America’s top networks.
“We want to create a that relationship where we are already constantly working together,” said Col. Ronald Banks, vice commandant of Air War College and director of the Air University‘sc Cyber cCollege, which is hosting the event. “If we have to exchange business cards at the time of a catastrophe, we’re so far lost, we are hopeless,” he told Air Force Times on May 18.”
Participants will not be conducting war games, Banks said. Instead, they’ll team with civilian cybersecurity professionals who operate in the financial, tech, telecommunications, energy and retail domains. Such collaboration can be a challenge, Banks said, alluding to the hesitation some private entities feel about working too closely with the government. He cited Edward Snowden, the ex-government contractor who leaked classified information about the United States’ secretive surveillance programs that leverage data gathered by major telecommunications companies.
“He highlighted the partnership that government had with certain private industries and how, when that once-secret relationship [became] public knowledge, [it] really hurt the financial bottom line of many corporations because of the perception that private industry was partnering with ‘Big Brother,’” Banks said. “That doesn’t always go over well with customers.”
That’s what Air University leaders hostingThe three-day Air Force Information Technology & Cyberpower Cconference in Montgomery, Alabama, hope to achieve. Banks said the three-day conference — back for the first time since sequestration, and now tweaked for unique interests — will aim to foster not just be about IT presentations and packets of information, but bringing the right minds together for to shape focused, smart dialogue that could help may ultimately shape national network protection strategies and compel push lawmakers toward enacting tougher policies can dictate protecting networks, and maybe even push lawmakers to create stiffer policies.
“During [a] conference, you get a lot of great speakers who talk on the topic and we tend to just admire the problem,” Banks said. “We’re going to go beyond … and looking at how can we bring not just Air Force, cyber experts together, but … ,other federal government entities, along with specific, private industry partners, to have a discussion about where are we are as a nation, where we are defending the nation, defending U.S. critical infrastructure, where could we go in the future, and how can we work together to get to … whatever that future state is.”
Airmen will get a seat at the collaboration table through different breakout sessions and courses. Some of those courses, for example, like the information technology course, will provide professional military or continuing education credits for airmen or civilians already in the cyber-training pipeline, said Dr. Panayotis “Pano” Yannakogeorgos, dean of the Cyber College.
“The plan is to have 50 people in a breakout session, with a core team in the center, … and other participants around working toward specific researched questions,” Yannakogeorgos said. “It’s not just for the 17D or 13S [cyberspace operations officer or space and missile operations Air Force Specialty Codes]. “W but we want pilots, enlisted folks … short answer, everyone. It’s open to their interests.”
Participants will not be conducting cyber war games, Banks said, but instead teaming up with civilian cybersecurity professionals members who operate in the financial, tech, telecommunications, energy and retail domains. They will also hear from speakers like Gen. John Hyten, head of Air Force Space Command.
Participants will not be conducting cyber war games, Banks said, but instead teaming up with civilian cybersecurity professionals who operate in the financial, tech, telecommunications, energy and retail domains. They will also hear from speakers like Gen. John Hyten, head of Air Force Space Command.
“Collaboration can be is always a significant challenge,” Banks said, because there is a great hesitation within the private sector about industry to working too closely collaborate with the government. He cited for the fear of the backlash,” Banks said. “I point to Edward Snowden, the ex-government contractor who leaked classified information about the United State’s secretive surveillance programs in. “He as an example, how . How he highlighted the partnership that government had with certain private industriesy and how, when that once-secret relationship [became] public knowledge, [it] [and] really hurt the financial bottom line of many corporations because of the perception that private industry was partnering with ‘Big Brother,’” Banks added. “,’ and tThat doesn’t always go over well with customers.”
Proactive stratagies
The challenge today problem now is that neither government nor commercial industry can go do it alone, Banks said.
“We need to be able to understand what they see. What are ’s the tactics?,wWhat are they seeing that [would] helps us build a better picture?
“If we’re able to — at the government level — work at denying or defeating those sophisticated threats, that frees up private industry’s bandwidth to contend with the lower level threat in a more effective way. That partnership doesn’t currently exist like that.”
By seeing and understanding the objectives of a malicious hacker, Banks explained, the U.S. could craft ways to put pressure on the cyberpunks. Some could be consequences could that go beyond the cyber world, such as imposing sanctions or tariffs on countries that sanction such attacksgoods, or even outing the hackers to defame the culprit country.
The military-civilian partnership Both sides needs to develop cook up a methodology for of approaching each specific threat —from countries like — China, Iran and Russia, to name a few — but right now no tailored strategy exists, Banks said.
“We have a lot of documents with the word strategy in their title, but they aren’t strategies.,…. and u Until we actually build a strategy that looks at it this way, then … we’re always going to be shooting in the wind and hoping something works, when we really don’t have a methodology for how to approach each specific threat.”
More than 2,000 people are expected to attend this year’s Air University-led conference, events, from held between Aug. 29 to 31, according to the AFTIC website. Together, airmen can walk knowing this isn’t just a They will leave understanding that this issue isn’t just an IT network security problem, but a serious threat to dilemma plaguing national security, Banks and Yannakogeorgos explained.
“They will head back to their organizations and re-examine what they’re doing,” Banks said. “T, and throughout the next 12 months, as we work toward the next conference, we can work at identifying, where … our areas that we can actually evolve our capability to possibly change the paradigm of the malicious cyber actors,” Banks said.
“This can also translate into opportunities after the military for these airmen,” he said.
Oriana Pawlyk covers deployments, cyber, Guard/Reserve, uniforms, physical training, crime and operations in the Middle East and Europe for Air Force Times. She was the Early Bird Brief editor in 2015. Email her at opawlyk@airforcetimes.com.
