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JBSA News
NEWS | Jan. 25, 2012

DISA inspection team to test JBSA-Randolph's cyber security

By Robert Goetz Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Public Affairs

A team of inspectors from the Defense Information Systems Agency will visit Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph next week to evaluate the base community's cyber security efforts.

As part of the five-day Command Cyber Readiness Inspection that begins Monday, the DISA team will assess JBSA-Randolph's compliance with information assurance polices, as well as the base community's ability to provide security for its classified and unclassified computer networks.

"This is a major inspection on the same level as an operational readiness inspection," Tommy Garcia, 902nd Communications Squadron vulnerability management specialist, said.

He said the success of the inspection depends on the attention active-duty members, Department of Defense civilians and contractors pay to cyber security - taking steps such as removing their common access cards from their computers when they leave their desks, not downloading email attachments from unknown senders, protecting passwords and personal identification numbers, never using unauthorized Universal Serial Bus devices and "challenging" unfamiliar people in the work area, making sure visitors are supposed to be there and providing escorts when necessary.

"Protecting our network requires all users to fully embrace the cyber culture," Garcia said. "The base users must thoroughly understand and uphold their responsibility to protect our network."

One of the areas in which the base community is showing significant improvement is in the reduction of unauthorized USB port usage, he said, referring to devices such as thumb drives, iPods and cellphones that cannot be connected to a USB port on the JBSA-Randolph network.

"We have reduced unauthorized USB port usage from 188 in 2010 to 71 in 2011," Garcia said.

Brig. Gen. Theresa Carter, JBSA commander, said members of the JBSA community should guard against complacency.

"We're accustomed to thinking of warfare in conventional terms, but the landscape has been changing rapidly," she said. "All of us walk point now on the cyberspace battlefront. The enemy is clever and may attempt to exploit us with methods that appear harmless, even friendly."

Garcia said DISA inspectors, who will visit locations throughout the base, may employ these methods, using social engineering techniques to test the cyber awareness of JBSA-Randolph personnel.

Joe Harris, 902nd CS wing information assurance chief, said it's important personnel know their unit information assurance officer - not just for the inspection, but at all times.

"They are your first contact in regard to security issues," he said. "You should work through them because they know base policies and can answer your questions."

Garcia said the inspection will test "how we're doing as a base to secure our house.

"We have to continue to push the policies and make sure everybody is in compliance with them, ensuring we're doing things right as far as security goes," he said.
Carter called cyber security within JBSA "everyone's responsibility."

"It requires constant vigilance," she said. "Activities that are seemingly innocuous can have devastating consequences in the cyber domain."

Carter said information protection and cyber activities "require attention to detail and awareness of potential consequences associated with carelessness.

"Remember, once information is sent into the cyber domain, it's there forever," she said. "We've seen too many incidents lately where service members lost that situational awareness, leading to embarrassing and harmful results."