As the Air Force looks to step up its education efforts, all airmen are soon likely to start receiving some cyber training.
Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, is instituting new cybersecurity classes set to get going this month.
Lt. Gen. Steven Kwast, the commander of Air University, said all airmen are going to need cyber training, even if their primary mission isn't solely focused on it.
"At the heart of this strategic agility is developing a force of thinkers that have that intellectual flexibility, that intellectual strategic capability to adapt and evolve in an information-age world," Kwast said.
But it won't be solely classes in a brick-and-mortar building at Maxwell, Kwast said. The university will provide online courses, digital training and classes at bases other than Maxwell in order to reach airmen wherever they are stationed.
The university has even hired its first Chief Information Officer to oversee cyber operations and teaching.
Scott Baker is the former director of Defense Information Systems Montgomery, and has previous experience working on cyber issues with several major corporations.
"He understands the Air Force, understands the joint information environment and is a profound innovator who will help lead the transformation of the education mission of the Air Force going into the future," Kwast said in a statement.
Kwast said the military is having difficulty with cybersecurity because it can't defend all the networks. The Internet was made to be open and easily accessible, so the Air Force should focus its efforts on protecting critical and sensitive systems, while reworking how it responds to low-level threats.
"The Internet and the cyber world we have created was never designed to be defended," Kwast said. "It's like taking a village and — in the age of air power — trying to protect the village by building a stone wall around that village and a moat. … There are ways of doing this differently in a way that you can protect the critical information you have without having to protect every network."
It's critical for U.S. security moving forward to become better at cybersecurity, Kwast said.
"America has to figure out how to live in an information age. Our tools of national power and the tools the Air Force brings must help the Air Force, help the nation, dominate information. In an age where we sink in data, we need to swim," Kwast said. "And we need to figure out how to have an open society where Americans can live free yet America can dominate the knowledge domain; where we understand what the information means and we are not overcome by it."
