There’s been “tremendous progress since 2010,” when the Army stood up its component cyber command, according to Ronald Pontius, deputy to the commanding general of Army Cyber Command.
Pontius drew parallels between the air domain and the cyber domain in operationalizing cyber, while also lauding the Signal Corps.
“The last time the Army operationalized a new domain – the air domain – was back in 1907,” he said. “Interestingly, the airplane was put under the focus of the signal corps because it was primarily seen as a new platform for observation across the battlefield. Back then, like today, the signal corps was pivotal in bringing the Army into a new era of warfare. Like today, the signal corps became the bridge between two domains – between land and air in 1907 and between land and cyberspace today.”
As the Army’s cyber forces are approaching initial operating capability six years following its formation, Pontius, speaking earlier this month at TechNet Augusta in Georgia, offered an assessment of the Army’s cyber posture and capabilities in the next six years;
- “The next six years will be about leveraging these achievements to create operational effects on a scale constrained only by our imagination and our old ways of thinking.” ARYBER personnel will be located at Fort Gordon conducting full-spectrum cyber operations.
- “The Army will lead the development and establishment of the cyber persistent training environment for the DoD. The cyber PTE will provide scenarios event management and access for high quality, individual and collective training and mission reversal capabilities for our cyber mission forces at the time and place of need for all four services and for U.S. Cyber Command. The Army was recently designated as the lead by the deputy secretary…and resources start flowing” in fiscal 2017.
- “I believe one of the biggest advances we will see in our capabilities is the convergence of Army networks. NIPRNet, SIPRNet and JWICS into one DoDIN operated, maintained and defended by the Signal Corps. So the Signal Corps will not only be highly relevant, it will be essential to everything that occurs on and across the DoDIN.”
- “Another advancement will be the full implementation of our network modernization. We’re already seeing progress under the Joint Regional Security Stack initiative, a major component of the single security architecture.”
- “Another major advancement will be the adoption of new types of multi-factor authentication. That could include applying biometric-based identity authentication systems at the enterprise and tactical levels. Coupled with endpoint security we will improve user efficiency and increase our situational understanding of everything and everyone that is on or accessing our network.”
- “To bring the collective power of all cyber capabilities to the combined arms fight, we’ll require the integration of electronic warfare, signal, information operations, intelligence and fires capabilities to deliver operational effects to our commanders. The integration of cyberspace operations is important to our success.”
