Over the next three years, the US Army will be filling its brand new cyber warfare institute at West Point with the best and brightest hackers it can find. Not just hackers, however: the institute will bring together psychologists, lawyers, mathematicians — anyone who can help the United States win the inevitable cyber war.
It sounds a bit bombastic to talk about cybersecurity that way, but the US Army is not messing around. Col. Greg Conti, the chairman of the new Army Cyber Institute, compares the new cyber warriors to the pilots that once made up the US Army Air Corps. “I think we’re building a unique team that’s never been done before,” Conti told the Army Times. “It’s a very exciting time,” he added. “It feels a bit like we’re at the birth of the Air Force, like we’re that kind of historic era.”
Historic, indeed. President Obama’s taken actually ordering devastating attacks. The Army Cyber Institute, which will be headquartered at the West Point Military Academy, will recruit about 25 people a year to help the US prepare to defend against these threats and mount the attacks that will give the US an advantage. The Army Times likens it to a sort of “cyber Ranger School” that “will be defining how cyber warfare is waged”.
Thinking about soldiers in fatigues staring at screens sure gives new meaning to that whole “Army of One” slogan, doesn’t it? [Army Times]
Picture: Getty