Lt. Patrick Key is the Staff Joint Interface Control Officer (JICO). He is the senior multi-tactical data link interface control officer in support of joint task force operations. Lt. Key hails from Birmingham, Alabama. He joined the Navy in 1993.
Q: What is your role at the Center for Surface Combat Systems (CSCS) and how does your role support Cybersecurity?
A: I am the lead Interface Control Officer for the CSCS domain. CSCS is developing cybersecurity curriculum, and I am the technical point of contact for the developers.
Q:Can you briefly describe the two Cybersecurity courses that are currently being developed?
A: The two courses are Surface Warfare Network Security Officer (NSO) and Surface Warfare Communications Officer (COMMO). The five-week NSO course will focus on cybersecurity with fundamental lessons in security, access control, policies and orders, inventory and asset management, cybersecurity operations, and training and certification of Cyber Security Work Force (CSWF) personnel.
The four-week COMMO course will provide lessons that focus on fundamentals related to safety, security, and radio frequency (RF) theory. The course will offer an introduction to the equipment that facilitates high frequency (HF), ultra high frequency (UHF), very high frequency (VHF) line-of-sight (LOS) RF communications, super high frequency (SHF) and extremely high frequency (EHF) satellite communications. It will deliver an overview of cybersecurity and practices that are dangerous to cybersecurity. Finally, students will be introduced to communication planning at the unit level.
Q: Why are these courses being developed?
A: These courses will provide the required fundamental knowledge to manage the communications facilities found on cruisers, destroyers, amphibious transport docks, landing ship docks, and littoral combat ship platforms.
Q: How will these courses benefit the fleet?
A: Officers will arrive on their respective ships with the requisite level of knowledge required to effectively manage communications facilities or network security aboard ship.
Q: Where will these courses be taught in the CSCS domain?
A: Both courses will be offered at CSCS Detachment East [Norfolk, Virginia] and CSCS Detachment West [San Diego, California].
When will the course pilots begin?
A: Both instructor-led courses are scheduled to be piloted in March and April 2016 with a designed throughput of 96 officers by the end of calendar year 2016.
Q: In your opinion as a cybersecurity SME, what is the future of Cybersecurity and surface combat systems training?
A: As courses mature and knowledge is expanded fleet-wide, Sailors will better understand the vulnerabilities that exist with regard to their systems. Ultimately, it is anticipated that this will lead to the development of a tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) and doctrine that could be effectively employed by our warships while deployed and at home.
Q: Why did you join the U.S. Navy?
A: After completing high school, I worked for a few years but soon realized that the job that I had would likely not lead to anything significant. Additionally, my income at that job was not sufficient for me to go to college. My grandfather was a WWII submariner and I remembered some of the stories that he told me when I was a child. I had always loved being around the ocean, so the decision was pretty easy for me —join the Navy and learn some skills that would make me more marketable to civilian industry and provide me with the means and opportunity to eventually go to college.
Lt. Key was interviewed by Kimberly M. Lansdale, public affairs specialist for the Center for Surface Combat Systems, in December at CSCS headquarters in Dahlgren, Virginia.