WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Deputy Commanding General Joseph McGee for The US Army Cyber Command said on Wednesday that the US Army’s cyber branch has the same status formally reserved for artillery, infantry and armored units.
"The Army created its own cyber branch, equivalent to infantry and armor," McGee stated during a presentation at an event in Washington, DC. "The cyber branch has the authority to operate just like an armor group."
The general claimed that the US Air Force, Marines and Navy mostly pull their cyber warriors from other disciplines such as electronic warfare and signals and, after a short time, send them back to their units shortchanging a full time commitment to cyber offense and defense.
The US Army Cyber Command, also known as ARCYBER, will be located at Fort Gordon in the US state of Georgia by May 2018 when new facilities will house Army cyber operations and command-control functions.
The Army lead for network modernization Maj. Gen. Garrett Yee said during the presentation with McGee that the military branch is aggressively working to improve the security of its networks.
"The Army will be fully migrated to Windows 10 in 2018, which has better security. We are replacing switchers and routers that are vulnerable to cyber-attack and locking down infrastructure or hardening local area networks," Yee stated.
The Army is migrating its networks to sit behind Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS) and aiming to reduce its connectivity to the public Internet, Yee added.
The JRSS is a suite of equipment that performs firewall functions, intrusion detection and prevention, enterprise management, virtual routing and forwarding and provides a host of network security capabilities, according to the Defense Information Systems Agency.
TODAY'S THE DAY — Can't be there in person? Tune in to live event feed at https://t.co/TdrulxM0Ov @USArmy @ArmyCyberCoE #cyber #AUSA2017 pic.twitter.com/oueDo2Wl6U
— Army Cyber Command (@ARCYBER) October 11, 2017
The Association of the US Army is a non-profit organization that acts primarily as an advocacy group for the military branch. The association was founded in 1950 and has 119 chapters worldwide.
