Army Reserve soldiers train in cyber defense operations

Courtesy Photo | Just over 200 soldiers from the five battalions belonging to the Army Reserve Information Operations Command came together from across the U.S. to participate in their annual training. This year the training took place March 22-29 at Fort Dix, N.J. The five areas of concentration for this year’s training revolved around dynamic defense, forensics, computer network defense service provider, incident handling, and threat analysis. (U.S. Army Photo taken by Arthur Banks, Army Reserve Information Operations Command)  

FORT DIX, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES

03.29.2014

Story by Capt. Addie Leonhardt 

76th Operational Response Command

FORT DIX, N.J. – Once a year, five battalions belonging to the Army Reserve Information Operations Command come together from across the U.S. to participate in their annual training. This year the training took place March 22-29 at Fort Dix, N.J.

Just over 200 soldiers participated in the training event, said Lt. Col. John Coiro, ARIOC brigade operations officer. The training allowed the soldiers of the ARIOC to hone their military occupation specialties in cyber defense operations as well as give them valuable training in other areas.

The five areas of concentration for this year’s training revolved around dynamic defense, forensics, computer network defense service provider, incident handling, and threat analysis. Subject matter experts in these areas were chosen from each battalion to lead the training.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sunny Ramos, a dynamic defense analysis from the Western Information Operations Command, based out of Camp Parks, Calif., was tasked to teach a class on Kali Linux, an operating system designed for digital forensics and penetration testing.

“I chose to teach the tool cobalt strike, an advance penetration testing tool, using Kali Linux as the operating system," said Ramos. “It wasn’t too difficult as I was exposed to that tool last year when I participated in the National Security Agency’s Cyber Defense Exercise."

Sgt. Leonardo Brown from the WIOC has been working with AT&T U-verse Internet Services for 12 years as a network security engineer in his civilian capacity.

In his civilian job, Brown deals with the security aspect of cyber defense and watches for intrusions to his company’s network. This requires him to analyze and understand they different ways people are hacking his employer’s network.

Once Brown dons his military uniform his role changes from security to the forensics. This allows him to delve deeper and see what artifacts were left behind, what actually hit the system as well as what information was taken.

“My jobs both civilian and military complement each other greatly. The security aspect of my civilian job allows me to see the before and the forensics aspect of my military job allows me to see the after,” Brown said.

Not only did the soldiers participate in their military occupational specialty training, but they also focused on soldier skills helping to ensure readiness for their rotational deployment in support of South West Asia Cyber Center.

ARIOC leadership is placing emphasis on preparing for the transition from their current mission in Cyber Training to the new Cyber Protection Teams. The command is working hard to develop advanced cyber training plans that rapidly advance the cyber skills across the brigade to support new missions.

When you have geographically dispersed units they tend to train in a vacuum. The benefit of getting all of these educated, skilled, and qualified individuals together if that they can learn from each other, said Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Blackard, noncommissioned officer in charge of the Master Cyber Trainer Detachment. They see they have similar constraints that impede their progress and are able to work collectively to over come these constraints to be better mission capable.

• Date Taken: 03.29.2014
• Date Posted: 04.01.2014 14:58
• Story ID: 123583
• Location: FORT DIX, NEW JERSEY, US