CCRI to evaluate Columbus AFB

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Amanda Savannah
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE,Miss. --  The Defense Information Systems Agency will conduct a Command Cyber Readiness Inspection of Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, Dec. 14-18.
The CCRI team evaluates the base’s cybersecurity posture and is mandated by the Department of Defense to ensure Air Force networks are effectively secured.
Lt. Col. Austin Hood, 14th Communications Squadron Commander, said the inspection will check many technical network items covered by DISA Security Technical Implementation Guides, or STIGs, for compliance. However, it will also check for security practices across the base for storage safes and security, classified material handling, safeguarding of Common Access Cards and more.
Because cyberspace has become the newest domain of 21st century warfare, these cybersecurity practices are the responsibility of everyone on base.
“From fuel pumps on the flightline, GPS links on weapons platforms, to the computer on your desk – every system that operates in and through cyberspace represents a vulnerability to the domain,” said Lt. Gen. William Bender, Air Force Chief of Information Dominance and Chief Information Officer, in a memorandum during Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October.
Hood said the importance of the inspection is not merely about passing it, but about maintaining a culture with the highest level of readiness possible for the network that today’s Air Force has become so reliant on.
“The ultimate test of not having the highest level of security that we could have, or being in the best readiness posture from a cyber-perspective, is that our adversaries gain access to our networks,” he said. “Folks that we don’t want on there might be able to leverage those systems in ways that make it counterproductive for us to use them.”
The inspection is a welcome component to the many checks and balances that ensure a high level of cyber readiness, Hood said, and he knows Team BLAZE will continue to safeguard its precious resources to the best of its ability.
“Just like units safeguard their time, their training schedules, and resources like the runway, cyber readiness is another resource Airmen have come to rely on and have integrated into their day-to-day processes and need it to be there day in and day out,” he said. “So why not protect it to the best level you can?”
Hood said he also doesn’t want people to fall under the false impression of being less vigilant or protective after the inspection.
“We’ve invested in the security of our network and workplaces to get us to this level of readiness and now is a good time to stay at that level,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot less effort to stay at this level of readiness than it was to achieve compliance with the hundreds of items required by the STIGs.”
To further explain, he used the analogy of a fitness test.
“If you work hard to get your fitness up to a level where you’re going to pass your fitness test and be in compliance with AFIs, as soon as you pass your test it’s easier on your body and easier on you to maintain that level, rather than to let your fitness atrophy and then the next time you’re due for a compliance check, to ramp it back up again,” Hood said. “The risk in the PT test is your health. For cyber readiness, the risk is mission accomplishment.”