BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- According to the Air Force Cyber Secure Campaign in 2016, 86 percent of the 8.2 million DoD e-mails received are malicious and blocked.
U.S. adversaries use cyber tools to attempt to steal classified information and to copy intellectual property. Terrorists are on a persistent endeavor to obtain data and it is up to the Armed Forces to deter them.
Recently, Buckley Air Force Base was handpicked alongside of six other bases to pilot a new program called Network As A Service, or NAAS, which will benchmark the way cyber deterrence in the United States Air Force is accomplished across the globe. Airmen who belong to the 460th Space Communication Squadron will no longer be limited to fixing technical issues, they will be defending our nation from very real cyber attacks
NAAS will transfer basic responsibilities, such as fixing network errors, e-mail set up and router issues, to information technology companies.
“Our adversaries are pushing us to be more proactive in cyber warfare,” said Mathew Adams, Air Force Space Command. “Command activities such as computer problems and e-mail are not title warfighting task. Defending our missions in cyberspace is a war fighting task. We want our Airmen to perform cyber deterrence so we can leverage industry to provide IT services the Airmen used to provide.”
Traditional network and computer tasks will be delegated to commercial companies.
“We are not just bringing in anyone in industry, we found a way to go after those commercial companies whose core business is network services, which was crucial to our acquisition approach when we went in to this,” said Col. Robert King, C3I Infrastructure Division. “We chose world class companies who are experts in this business. We are very excited about these transformations at Buckley.”
With the NAAS transition, warrior Airmen will be exponentially poised to defend the U.S. against adversaries from turning digital breakthroughs into digital bombs.
“The Air Force needs router administrators, email exchange managers and individuals to manage IT. We just don’t need them to be Airmen.” King said. “Airmen are trained to fight America’s wars. We want our communication Airmen in a war-fighting capability.”
Team Buckley strives to be bold information technology investors who shape operations in, through and from cyberspace. Our emphasis is toward functioning and fighting as cyber warriors, defending our networks and core missions from attacks and preparing for offensive operations to execute when appropriate authorities direct.