June 5th, 2008
Air Force seeks part-time cyberwarriors
Air Force Cyber Command is looking to Silicon Valley for part-time help in its fight against cyberattack, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
For example, the 262nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron, an Air National Guard unit in Washington State, has tapped into guardsmen employed at Microsoft, Adobe, and Cisco, wrote Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne in a recent article. Based at Lackland Air Force Base in central Texas, the 688th Information Operation Wing recruits from tech-heavy Austin. The Air National Guard is also drawing from Sprint and Boeing for the Kansas-based 177th Information Aggressor Squadron, he added.
“We … must capitalize on the talent and expertise of our Guard and Reserve members who may have direct ties and long experience in high-tech industry,” Secretary Wynne wrote.
The Air Force also is looking for full-time geeks to help the cyberwar effort — and it realizes that some of the best prospects may not be the spit-and-polish types. Think M*A*S*H with laptops.
[Prospect are perhaps not] “the same kind of folks that perhaps you want to march to breakfast in the morning,” Air Force Col. Jeff Kendall told the Council on Foreign Relations in March. The colonel also suggested the Air Force may have to make exceptions to its entry standards and recruit ex-hackers, who may have committed computer-related crimes or have a felony conviction for unlawfully cracking a network.
