Several thousand people attended the TechNet Augusta 2024 conference in Georgia on August 19-22 to discuss cybersecurity and operations. Taking place at the Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center, the annual event attracts members of U.S. Army Cyber Command, the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, program executive officers, chief information officers, plus officials from cyber components, agencies, GovCon, academia, and the military services.
The theme for this year’s conference, presented by AFCEA, was “Transform, Align, Accelerate for Pacing Challenges,” and 276 exhibitors set up shop to share the latest in cyber defense. But the speeches and technology weren’t the only topics of conversation, as authorities are now investigating a foul smell that plagued the convention center.
Focusing on AI
Brig. Gen. Mark Miles, deputy commanding general, Army Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE) Photo Credit: AFCEA
Unsurprisingly, AI was top of mind at TechNet Augusta 2024. Brig. Gen. Mark Miles, deputy commanding general of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, pointed to how the technology and its machine learning component can help mature cybersecurity. Specifically, warfighters can use data to inform the decisions they must make on the fly on the battlefield.
“Getting the decisions right, making smarter decisions, identifying what those decisions are and how critical they are and then how we’re aligned to execute those is an extremely critical step,” Miles said. “If you don’t get the actual decision and the process isn’t right to support it, speeding up probably isn’t going to give you a lot of advantages against an advanced adversary.”
Officials with the 18th Airborne Corps have the goal of becoming the Army’s first AI-enabled unit. To do this, they need four things, said Brig. Gen. John Cogbill, deputy commanding general of the corps and Fort Liberty in North Carolina: a culture of innovation, a data-literate workforce, data governance and management, and an AI-enabled infrastructure.
The group already uses the AI-fueled Maven Smart System, but Cogbill challenged GovCon attendees to produce a better-performing option.
Army research into generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) found that the more focused GenAI is, the more it’s useful. It has been most helpful so far at integrating LLMs, said Army CIO Leonel Garciga.
“I’m super excited in this space right now, because really, industry has come to the table in a very good way with lots of lessons learned, and everyone is being pragmatic, like, ‘Here’s where we are in this story; this isn’t a 100% solution [but] maybe this gives you some lift,’” Garciga said.
Unifying the Network
The Army’s work on a unified network also dominated sessions at TechNet Augusta. For it to be successful, the service needs to do some restructuring to ensure that most patching can happen from one location and that all personnel – military and civilian – are trained to the same level, said Lt. Gen. John Morrison Jr., deputy chief of staff of G-6.
He also called on the GovCon community to develop automation and integrated operating views from the edge to help lighten cybersecurity analytical workloads, while Maj. James Ziwak, the Army’s assistant capability manager for network and services, emphasized the importance of interoperability, especially in support of the Enterprise Computing Environment (ECE) on the unified network.
The ECE, which will support the service’s move to a hybrid cloud, is expected to be able to remotely store data from tactical systems and help military units make use of AI from wherever they are.
“The idea is that ECE will provide the warfighting applications across the unified network and throughout the deployment process,” Ziwak said.
Hitting Fast Forward
Leonel Garciga, CIO for the U.S. Department of the Army. | Photo Credit: AFCEA
To keep pace with the speed of technology and cyber development, the Army is making changes.
To help the service deliver new features quickly, CIO Garciga shared that he is preparing to sign new guidance for the Army on achieving continuous authorization (cATO) for DevSecOps platforms. This would reduce the need for defense agencies to go through the lengthy process of securing authorities to operate.
“Have an initial ATO, go as fast as you can, and deliver software. Don’t need to redo [the ATO]. Don’t need to have a secondary ATO. This is really about can we deliver directly to production,” Garciga said of the forthcoming guidance.
Meanwhile, Defense Information Systems Director Robert Skinner said he plans to migrate 100,000 users onto DoDNet starting in October and continuing for six to nine months. DoDNet lets all defense agencies and field activities operate on a single, common network while providing standardized applications and tools.
“We’re going to collapse a lot of these agency networks that have been stove-piped and have legacy technology in them,” Skinner said. “Companies are coming to us and saying, ‘We are no longer going to support this. We understand you have a mission, but we can’t afford it – and, oh, by the way, we can’t find the expertise from a mass standpoint to be able to afford that.’”
With so many irons in the cybersecurity fire, we can’t wait to see what comes next at TechNet Augusta 2025!