557th Weather Wing gets WICIDS

Col. Matthew Sattler, 557th Weather Wing deputy commander, taps the enter key to launch the new Weather Integrated Cyber Intrusion Detection System during its activation ceremony May 15, 2025, at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. The wing established a team of experts who were able to come together and strategize on how they would assemble the system. While working with the 16th Air Force, they were able to get the system accredited and approved to operate. (U.S. Air Force photo by Charles J. Haymond)

Educating the Cyber Enterprise

Published May 4, 2026
By HAF/A2/6
HAF/A2/6

TOPIC SPONSOR: HAF/A2/6

How do we leverage resources to educate Cyber Enterprise (e.g. the College of Information of Cyberspace)?

Banner, Maj. Jeffery A., "Hunt Forward Operations as a Diplomatic Arm of the United States," AF Fellow Op-Ed (University of Texas, San Antonio, Cyber Warfare), 2025, 3 pgs.
- Banner identifies a critical shortfall in current cyber education: while U.S. cyber operators are highly skilled technically, they lack formal education in international diplomacy. Because Hunt Forward Operations (HFOs) require operators to interact directly with foreign diplomats and military leaders, a lack of diplomatic training risks causing cultural insensitivity or friction. To resolve this, Banner recommends leveraging external resources—specifically partnering with the Foreign Service Institute, National Defense University, and academic think tanks—to develop a formalized "Cyber Diplomacy Curriculum". This would equip the cyber workforce with vital skills in cultural competency, protocol, foreign policy context, and negotiation.
Bond, Maj. Cash, "Redefining the Cyber Edge: Operational Technology Should be Foundational to Cyber Training Pipelines," AF Fellows, 2025.
- Bond addresses this by highlighting that current Department of Defense (DoD) cyber training pipelines focus almost exclusively on Information Technology (IT), leaving operators unequipped to defend the Operational Technology (OT) that controls critical physical systems. To close this educational gap without reinventing the wheel, he argues the military should formally leverage existing external resources, industry partnerships, and commercial providers. Specifically, Bond recommends sending cyber operators to specialized, free training courses provided by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which offer hands-on, world-class instruction on evaluating, monitoring, and securing industrial control systems.
Golosov, Maj. Zack, "US Military Cyber Operations: Forced to Do More with Less," ACSC course paper (Cyber Concentration), 2024, 11 pgs.