Cyber Defense is a Team Sport

Last week I attended the U.S. European Command’s Cyber Defense/Information Assurance Conference at the General Rogers Conference Center on Patch Barracks. Although no one showed up with a cheesy hat or a black and white jersey, I definitely felt Cyber Defender’s team spirit as information was presented on securing theater networks and information.

The theme of this conference was “Empowering a Cyber Defense Workforce" and included over one hundred participants with 40 partner cyber defenders from 18 countries, NATO, and other international organizations. The cheer squad came from USEUCOM's components, DoD agencies and industry.

Brig. Gen. Greg Brundidge, the director of EUCOM’s J6 Command, Control and Communications directorate, kicked off the conference with his keynote discussion and emphasized the need to facilitate collaboration and improve empowerment of cyber defense personnel, technology and processes through education, policy and guidance, and secure and defensible networks.

The second quarter’s key play was a presentation by Mr. Tony Sager, from the National Security Agency, entitled “Equipping the Cyber Defender: The Information Advantage” that discussed the future in Cyber Defense as Information Management. General Ed Daniel, Deputy J3 and Joint Forces Cyber Component Commander, coached on US European Command’s vision for cyber operations.

Halftime’s presentations from industry partners on cloud computing and associated security challenges provided insights into future technologies and threat vectors. The second half of this conference consisted seminars on Cyber Defense/Information Assurance, Forensics and NATO Cyber Defense activities. The game ended following informational presentations on Command Cyber Readiness Inspections and the EUCOM theater sensor strategy by Mr. Bill Keeley from the Defense Information Systems Agency Field Security Operations. At the end of the game, everyone went home a winner!

This conference, along with other Command, Control, and Communications international partnering initiatives like Combined Endeavor, Cyber Endeavor and Phoenix Endeavor are a part of the EUCOM Cyber Team's efforts to build better cyber defense capability across the theater. These events help build the essential bridges we need to facilitate collaboration and improve effectiveness of cyber ops personnel, technology, and processes.

Kay Myers
Chief, Cyber Defense Division
EUCOM C3 System and Warfighting Integration Directorate
Twitter: @Cyber_Patriot

Cyber Defenders attending this conference came from all over the U.S. European Command Theater and included Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey. NATO organizations attending included the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability Technical Center and the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence.