ACE Cyber Security Boot Camp prepares future officers

News > ACE Cyber Security Boot Camp prepares future officers

ACE Cyber Security Boot Camp prepares future officers

Posted 9/28/2010

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by Tech. Sgt. Kevin Williams
Air Force Space Command Public Affairs

9/28/2010 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) -- With constantly evolving threats to cyberspace affecting national security, the Air Force is coming up with new ways to enhance cyber security.

Educating the force is one way to face the challenges of keeping cyberspace secure, and future officers are receiving this education before they earn their commissions.

The nation's only cyber leadership development program for ROTC cadets, the Advanced Course in Engineering Cyber Security Boot Camp is a ten-week program that includes graduate instruction on the science of cyber warfare, hands-on training with tools of the trade and a research internship with Air Force scientists and engineers.

The education program, which also includes cyber warfare and a weekly 8-mile run, was created by Dr. Kamal Jabbour, the Air Force senior scientist for information assurance at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y.

The ACE has educated 226 future cyber leaders who occupy key positions across government agencies during the past eight years.

"We educate future leaders on the fundamentals of cyber warfare so they can operate in an uncertain future," Dr. Jabbour said. "Training relies on tools and past experiences. Training without education has failed to assure Air Force missions against cyber threats. The ACE educates future Air Force officers on the science and technology of cyber warfare and prepares them to contribute to the defense of this nation."

Since the program began, officers who graduated from the course said they are seeing the benefits of the instruction, not only personally, but professionally.

"ACE reinforced my desire to go active duty and give the Air Force my maximum effort," said 1st Lt. Karl Sickendick, of the 711th Human Performance Wing at Brooks City-Base, Texas. "During ACE, I realized where my skills lie and precisely what I wanted to do for the Air Force. Aside from all that though, it had a direct affect on the quality of officer I am and will become."

Another former student, 1st Lt. Micah Heard, from the Air Armament Center located at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., said the ACE has enhanced his knowledge as an officer and cyber warrior.

"It's already helped me a great deal in my career so far," he said. "Just the name recognition from ACE has helped me get on a highly-competitive deployment, as well as an unheard of by-name request for a special asymmetric security assessment. I drew heavily on the discipline and the skills I learned at ACE for both of those assignments."

ACE, like threats to cyberspace, is constantly evolving to keep ideas fresh and our leaders knowledgeable in potential threats.

"For summer 2011, we have developed an information assurance internship program that takes cyber science and technology to a new height," Dr. Jabbour said. "The IA internship will bring the best and brightest college juniors and seniors in the nation and put them to work under my mentorship on assuring critical Air Force functions in a contested cyber environment. The IA internship program seeks to define the science of mission assurance, and use the interns to derive technologies from the science, and apply these to critical Air Force needs."

His former students and current officers concur that the education should be expanded across the field and offered up some suggestions of their own.

"We will absolutely need cyber leaders in the future," Lieutenant Sickendick said. "We need them now, and the demand can only increase. ACE is cyber education, and to produce cyber leaders, a cyber education needs to go into depth. ACE fits the free time that ROTC cadets have during the summer, but as an ROTC summer program, it is constrained by time. A solution is to get officers from undergraduate cyber programs. Universities like our service academies can provide this education, and can produce great cyber leaders. We need to foster education programs from our military and civilian institutions if we hope to defend our country in the cyber domain."

"I think the more attention we can give to information security the better for our warfighters," Lieutenant Heard said. "We need to make sure that our front-line leaders and troops have access to the information they need to make the best decision and that we deny the enemy access to our information."

In his 2003 National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, President George W. Bush called for a public-private partnership to develop the next generation of cyber leaders. This led to the inception of ACE Cyber Security Boot Camp by Dr. Jabbour.

Minimum eligibility requirements for the education program are: rising college seniors in computer engineering, electrical engineering, math, physics and computer science with a cumulative GPA of 3.0; U.S. citizenship; ROTC cadets on scholarship; and a security clearance.

Like any other education program, success is measured by how well it is applied and practiced in the real world.

"I walked away with a real appreciation for information security across all spectrum, from 1's and 0's to papers left lying around to casual phone conversation, and with a healthy respect for thinking outside the box," Lieutenant Heard said. "At ACE, we were given a unique situation to be in an environment that encouraged trying new things and pushing the boundaries. It was a place where a failure was not the end of the world as long as you learned something from it. It was really freeing."