AFIT training set for ROTC

The eight-week program trains for cyber security.

Future military officers will compete in a large-scale cyber warfare event this summer as part of a cyber security program hosted by the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Center for Cyberspace Research.

The Advanced Cyberspace Education (ACE) program was developed in response to a growing number of cyber security exploitations and attacks, according to Wright-Patt officials.

The eight-week program starts June 18 and will provide cyber warfare education and hands-on training to 38 cadets and midshipmen from Air Force, Army and Navy ROTC detachments representing 30 schools and 22 U.S. states, including one local cadet from Cedarville University. The ACE students were competitively selected from 144 detachments nationwide.

“The skills being developed through ACE will provide dividends to our nation as we operate and defend our national assets,” said Richard Raines, director of the Center for Cyberspace Research.

The students also will gain research experience though internships with cyber professionals at AFIT and other Wright-Patt organizations.

As part of their hands-on training, students will set up and secure web and file servers. They will test their knowledge Aug. 8-9 during “Hackfest,” a cyber warfare event in which two teams compete using the cyber defense tactics, techniques and procedures that they learned through the program in the context of a military operation.

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