‘Let’s go!’: Ceremonies welcome cybersecurity squadrons to Scott AFB

The launch of Scott Air Force Base’s latest tenants was officially completed Tuesday, with activation ceremonies for two newly-created cybersecurity squadrons under the auspices of the Air Force Space Command.

The 835th Cyberspace Operations Squadron and the 837th Cyberspace Squadron, along with the 688th Cyberspace Operations Group, came into official existence Tuesday during indoor ceremonies held at Scott.

The new squadrons and ops group will bring a total of about 290 active-duty troops, along with 59 civilian staff and 20 contract support personnel.

Col. Roger Vrooman, commander of the 688th Cyberspace Operations Group, launched the unit with a stirring speech, ending it with a shout to his troops: “Let’s go!”

During his address to new squadron members and visitors, Vrooman noted that he barely knew anything about cybersecurity or cyber-warfare before taking part in an intensive three-month training program on both subjects.

“I’m still in shock that I’m standing in front of you today,” said Vrooman, 51, whose earlier career had been spent in tactical communications. “The training was intensive. It just about wore me out.”

The Air Force has already budgeted $16 million to upgrade and expand existing buildings at Scott to house the new cyber-security units.

The new squadrons at Scott will answer to the 688th Cyberspace Wing, which has headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio, Lackland AFB, Texas. The wing is subordinate to the 24th Air Force, which is also based at Joint Base San Antonio.

Three new cybersecurity squadrons are being formed in San Antonio, and they, too, will serve under the aegis of the 688th Cyberspace Wing.

The five new cybersecurity squadrons, based at Scott and San Antonio, will carry out a wide spectrum of missions serving clients in both the Department of Defense and federal agencies, according to Vrooman.

Their overall mission will “be national, DoD-wide and service-specific,” Vrooman said.

In other words, the squadrons could help national federal agencies beef up their cybersecurity, or they could help the Pentagon itself or they could help a specific uniformed service, such as the U.S. Navy, in addition to the Air Force. Mission partners will include three major Scott tenants: the U.S. Transportation Command, the Air Mobility Command the Defense Information Systems Agency.

The new cybersecurity squadrons will be primarily defensive in nature, while their tasks will begin when they find out from operational commands “what the important missions are, what part of cyberspace these important missions are running through,” Vrooman said. “And then we’ll assess those missions, we’ll assess the systems, we’ll analyze them and we’ll look for any weaknesses and make recommendations on how we will help solve and strengthen their cyber space protection.”

When fully staffed, the two new squadrons at Scott will have up to 140 airmen apiece. But full staffing is not expected to occur until sometime next year. For now, each squadron has between 50 and 75 airmen, with additional unit members trickling in every day, he said.

“It seems like we’re getting new folks every day,” he said.

Work to provide housing and office space for Scott’s new cybersecurity squadrons began a year ago, and will continue for another 30 months.

Over the last three years, cybersecurity has mushroomed into a major anxiety for the White House and Pentagon leaders, who have warned repeatedly that a “digital Pearl Harbor” could hit America because of key online vulnerabilities besetting defense contractors, Wall Street and the nation’s power grid.

Over the past year, reports have surfaced that Chinese government hackers stole from federal contractors some of the most highly classified stealth technology developed for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 next-generation jet fighter plane, while last summer Washington, D.C. was rocked by the revelation that hackers — widely suspected of working for the Chinese government — compromised 22 million military and civilian personnel records kept by the Office of Personnel Management, the worst hack in American history.

President Obama last week signed a $607 billion defense bill that orders the Pentagon to spend $200 million to identify holes in U.S. weapons and communications software that could allow foreign militaries to disrupt or defeat advanced arms in cyber attacks. The spending bill mandates an evaluation of cyber weaknesses in weapons systems, including weaponized drone aircraft, the remote hijacking of which has evolved into a nightmare scenario for Pentagon leaders.

When asked to describe the major cyber threats facing Scott Air Force and the U.S. military in general, Vrooman cast a wide, wide net.

“Everything is really a potential threat,” Vroomnan said, “from a nation-state, to a non-nation state, to a terrorist group, to the person that’s sitting in a room, 14 years old, just playing around, not knowing what they’re doing and just accidentally doing somethign thyre not supposed to do.”

This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 11:33 AM with the headline "‘Let’s go!’: Ceremonies welcome cybersecurity squadrons to Scott AFB."