Army May Face Cyber Sticker Shock

The U.S. Army is building a Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and it will not come cheap, warned Maj. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, USA, the center’s new commanding general.

“Cyber is not cheap. It’s not free,” Gen. Fogarty told the AFCEA TechNet Augusta audience on Wednesday. Right now, he said, the service's chief information officer and the intelligence community are helping fund Signal Corps and intelligence aspects of the center, but much of the funding needed will not fall under either function. “I think the Army’s going to be in for a little bit of a shock, because as you look at part of this that is not intel or signal, you have to man up and put cash down. We’re working our way through that.”

The money is needed, he added, for much more than the center of excellence sign at the front gate. Among other things, the center requires secure facilities commonly referred to as a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility. “We have a SCIF going in. It will really be just-in-time. It’s not adequate for the future,” he said, adding that the Army will have to identify a new funding stream to provide a signal and cyber SCIF for the center of excellence.

Additionally, the Army intends to beef up cyber training. Currently, the Defense Department deploys an opposing force to attack networks for training at the combat training centers. “Right now, it’s a one way fight. We deploy a world-class opposing force, and they go into your network noncompetitively, and they just pummel you,” he said. “We’re really at the basic level right now. There’s going to be a point where we’ll transition and have teams that go forward and fight it out with the opposing force.”