ATHENS, Ga. (AP) \u2014 The University of Georgia and the U.S. Army\u2019s Cyber Command could soon be exchanging students and workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A civilian Army official, Ronald Pontius, says the command would take up University of Georgia Vice President for Research David Lee\u2019s offer during a UGA conference on informatics, or big data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pontius is deputy to the commanding general of the U.S. Army Cyber Command, The Athens Banner-Herald reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a recent conference in Athens, Pontius said the U.S. Army Cyber Command in east Georgia is looking to build partnerships with the University of Georgia. He suggested that possible collaborations with the university could include internships, research projects and young Cyber Command workers studying at UGA, among other ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Army Cyber was authorized in 2009, it was the Army\u2019s first new command in 30 years, since Special Forces in 1987, Pontius said. Army officials deemed the new command fully operational last month. And soon, its headquarters will move from 11 buildings scattered across three states to Augusta\u2019s Fort Gordon, Pontius said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new command is a part of the U.S. Cyber Command, which also includes Navy, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard units.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pontius recalled the mid-century space race between the United States and the Soviet Union and the \u201ctremendous partnership\u201d then between academia, industry and government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now as then, \u201cthe very foundation of our national security is related to technology,\u201d he said at the recent conference at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the Athens campus. The event was sponsored by UGA\u2019s new Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pontius and three young Army lieutenants, all West Point graduates, described what the new Cybersecurity Command is: searching for \u201canomalies\u201d with computers processing 10 to 40 terabytes of data a day, up to 150,000 digital events in a second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Its responsibilities spill over into everything the Army does \u2014 logistics, health care, maintenance, weapons systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall Cyber Command has about 19,000 people worldwide, 80 percent military. Its activities include a joint task force that came together 17 months ago to \u201cdeal with ISIS in the cyber arena,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pontius and the cadets spoke of a \u201cfundamental change\u201d in what the Cyber Command does since it was formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat has fundamentally changed is that very complex things can be done by people who don\u2019t have the super-complexity themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The command is particularly focused on criminal behaviors in China, Iran, North Korea and other nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell the difference, especially with Russia,\u201d what is state-sanctioned activity and what is criminal, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s all very much intermingled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the University of Georgia, informatics is a major research initiative under UGA President Jere Morehead and Provost Pamela Whitten. Two years ago, Morehead approved hiring 10 new faculty members in informatics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new center\u2019s head is engineering professor Kyle Johnsen, but informatics research spans 19 academic units across several of the university\u2019s colleges and schools, including pharmacy; agricultural economics; management information systems in the business school; and geography, statistics, genetics and others in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University of Georgia and the U.S. Army\u2019s Cyber Command could soon be exchanging students and workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":62125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"8":{"categories":[],"primary_category":""}}},"categories":[106,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1328],"class_list":["post-20498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"CIN6HBVTXJFBTJYSBCL7335CDE","arc_canonical_url":"\/workforce\/education-training\/2017\/12\/11\/university-of-georgia-army-cyber-command-eye-partnerships\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n