Army to have two cyber protection platoons in place this summer

The Army’s cyber protection forces will fall under the U.S. Army Signal Corps, specifically the Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM), Fort Huachuca, AZ, which is about to begin recruiting cyber experts.

"It has been determined that the cyber protection forces will fall underneath the Signal Corps, specifically NETCOM," said MG Alan Lynn, NETCOM commanding general, as quoted in an article published by the 311th Signal Command (Theater) public affairs office at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. "We have already stood up the 7th Cyber Mission Unit at Fort Gordon, and we are going to start recruiting here shortly for cyber warriors. By this summer there will be two cyber protection platoons."

Lynn visited Hawaii last month as part of his recent Pacific engagement tour, which included a visit with signal soldiers of the U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Army Pacific.

In related news, Lynn was selected last month for the position of vice director, Defense Information Systems Agency, at Fort Meade, Md. At this time, a departure date has not been announced, and no replacement has been identified.

While in Hawaii, Lynn also spoke about the future of Signal Corps and upcoming projects at NETCOM, to include the virtual environment as a training aid, and the Pacific.

"What the chief of staff of the Army wants for the future is a live, virtual, and constructive environment," said Lynn in the public affairs article. "When funding goes down, at some point training stops. With a virtual environment, you can actually have some helicopters flying, with some folks behind a screen; you have some Humvees driving with some folks behind a screen. Everything is happening all at once."

Lynn also discussed the advantages of passive optical networks, which 311th public affairs defined as “point-to-multipoint, fiber-to-the-premises network architecture in which unpowered optical splitters are used to enable a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises.” Such optical networks would replace wired, Ethernet networks.

"Ethernet takes 35,000 switches and routers per post; you can do the same thing for about 2,000 switches with passive optical networks," Lynn was quoted as saying. "The life cycle for Ethernet is 5-7 years; it is 10-15 plus with the passive optical networks."