Army officials coordinate cyber security strategies

Top U.S. Army officials came together recently to plan the Army’s next steps in shoring up cyber security.

The Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) sponsored the collaborative meeting at the Army’s Cyber Center of Excellence (Cyber CoE) in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

The Cyber Center is commanded by Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, who said the meeting was intended to build and strengthen partnerships and a common understanding among key stakeholders who support the warfighter in cyberspace operations.

The meeting was a follow-on to an April meeting between the Training and Doctrine Command's Centers of Excellence for Intelligence (ICoE) and Cyber CoE.

"A home-on-home between the ICoE and the Cyber CoE was long overdue," Fogarty said. "The initial two-day home-on-home collaboration engagement was to be between the Cyber COE and ICoE, followed by continued engagements with additional cyber stakeholders."

ICoE and Cyber CoE are now tightly aligned on their cyber strategic plan and on how to implement those plans.

The cyber and intelligence CoEs are tasked with training soldiers and shaping Army doctrine for their respective areas. They brought in additional cyber stakeholders for the meetings, including research and development, acquisition, test and sustainment communities.

"The Army can't afford to continue to stovepipe solutions in any of its systems, but we especially can't afford it in our cyber solutions where the environment changes every day and introduces new threats every day,” CERDEC Director Paul Zablocky said. “Meetings like these help shape and inform requirements that TRADOC identifies as cyber needs for soldiers.”