AFA officer wins cyberwarfare award

  • Published
  • By Butch Wehry
  • Academy Spirit staff writer
Academy Capt. Michael Henson participated as a member of the red team in a cyber capture the flag event held by the New York City chapter of InfraGard July 21-22. He returned with a Bokken Katana sword for dominating the competition and placing first among the red cell.

A bokken is used as an inexpensive and relatively safe substitute for a real sword, and is used in training for several martial arts. Bokken are used in kendo kata, a form of training to develop technically correct movements.

"I'm a firm believer that we need to understand how we are attacked in order to do a good job defending against attacks," said the Academy Assistant Professor of Computer Science. "I was actually surprised to take away the first-place win on the red team since this was my first 'official' capture the flag event." Although it was his first time participating as a member of the red cell, he has worked as a member of multiple blue cell teams over the past eight years. He was invited to the competition by a professor at the Coast Guard Academy who also works for Cisco networks. That professor also competed in the competition which was held at Cisco's facility in Manhattan.

InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies and others dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States. InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.

"During the two-day event, I competed against 13 red team members to gain and maintain entry into defenders' networks and obtain flags proving entry into databases and other areas while blue cell members worked to keep me out," said the officer from East Wenatchee, Wash. His primary targets were defended by a graduate team from New York's Fordham University and their Professor, Dr. Frank Hsu. Fordham University hosted the 2009 International Conference on Cyber Security. The capture the flag event has been mentioned in several highly visible security blogs including one at Tenable Security and Solera Networks.

"It's cliché, but it really is true that network defenders need to be right all the time whereas the attacker ... which happened to be me this time ... only has to be right once in a while to get in," he said. Computer security professionals are fully aware of this situation which is why much of the focus is on "fighting through" and quick recovery if and when an adversary compromises a system. "I also learned a few new techniques for gaining access to certain types of systems and applications and what to look for when I'm trying to defend them."

Captain Henson initiated the Air Force Academy's newest cadet club, the Cadet Cyber Warfare Club which is now a few months old. The concept of the club is to take an interdisciplinary approach to providing network attack and defense skills and education to future Air Force Officers. 

"We have been developing much of our own training modules but are now benefitting from relationships with Air Force network warfare squadrons and other entities both inside and outside of the Air Force," he said. "By aligning our training with current network warfare operators in the Air Force we provide a service to both the cadets and the Air Force." 

As the Air Force continues to work the education and training piece for the cyber warrior force the Academy is producing officers capable of easily stepping into network warfare units. If initial network warfare training is required at those units, officers should be able to, at the very least, move through that training rather quickly if not "test out" of some of the training altogether. 

"Our vision is to produce officers capable of operating in and dominating the Cyberspace domain and also to provide a frame of reference for those who may never directly work as a network warfare officer," the captain said. "In the same way that all Air Force Airmen need to understand the Air and Space domains we want to produce a cross-section of officers who fundamentally understand cyberspace and the tools and options network warfare operators can bring to the fight." 

Currently, there are approximately 60 cadets in the Cyber Warfare Club but that number is expected to rise. "The club will have a booth at the "Blue Rush" event Saturday," Captain Henson concluded.