US Army conducts first tactical cyber exercise readying teams for operations

Mark Pomerleau

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MUSCATATUCK URBAN TRAINING CENTER, Ind. — A group of terrorists is holed up in a governor’s mansion, a smart house riddled with Internet of Things devices. An U.S. military unit wants to force them out, but risking an outright shooting match might not be the best course of action.

On the ground, Army cyber forces are called in to use their skills to hack into the house’s smart devices to gain intelligence on what’s going on inside and potentially use cyber effects to force the terrorists to leave.

This is one example of how soldiers from the 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion tested their skills in a fictitious scenario during a recent exercise, part of validating themselves as a ready unit.

The 915th was created by Army Cyber Command in 2019 under the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade as the result of a pilot program to build tactical, on-the-ground cyber and electromagnetic teams to augment units with cyber, electronic warfare and information operations capabilities.

The vision is to create a total of 12 expeditionary cyber and electromagnetic activities teams (ECTs) by 2026 that will help plan tactical cyber operations for commanders and conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces.

The first such unit, ECT-01, was at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Indiana, a sprawling facility featuring physical buildings that can can be hacked into, demonstrating actual physical effects of cyber or electronic operations, in early December as part of its readiness checks.

It was the first such validation exercise that will stress the ECT’s functions over the course of five days.

In the past, these forces from the battalion have accompanied units to combat training center rotations to augment their operations using their specialized and tailored information effects. However, this type of training environment isn’t the optimal venue because those rotations are meant to test, stress and validate full brigades.

“For this exercise, we have more control,” said Capt. Gabriel Akonom, an officer with the battalion. “We have more control over the training objectives … whereas we have much less control, if any, for a CTC rotation.”

Tactical cyber forces tested their skills as a means of validating themselves as a ready unit.

As the Army is building this unit, it needs a combat training center-like facility where it can test itself against critical objectives it will need to achieve on behalf of units it will be called in to support.

“We have an opportunity here where we control the scenario and we can really test and the stress the ECT proper. When we go to a CTC, we have the added benefit of actually integrating with an infantry platoon, a scout platoon. We are not there yet with this training situation where we can actually do that,” battalion Sgt. Maj. Marlene Harshman said.

Officials said they focused on three main objectives during the event, based on the mission-essential task list:

Conduct expeditionary deployment activities, including everything the team needs to plan, organize and deploy a team both administratively and logistically;

Establish infrastructure operations, which the team needs to accomplish to integrate into a network of higher command to conduct their operations, and;

Provide information advantage, which is still a bit undefined given the Army is still developing the doctrine for it.

Given the unit is so new and is still in the process of being built, officials said these training objectives, as well as mission-essential task lists, are likely to change in the future.

“The METLs should change based off the mission. We’re talking about cyberspace being constantly evolving; we know the METL is going to change,” said Lt. Col. Benjamin Klimkowski, commander of the 915th.

Looking to training

The ECT worked to test and stress its technical skills during the exercise. While this cyber unit is unique in that soldiers must also be physically fit enough to move across the battlefield with others, the physical maneuver aspect was not part of the testing this time around.

In the example of the governor’s mansion, officials explained that given it is a target-rich environment from a digital standpoint, it allows the unit to test their skills and be able to provide multiple options for a joint commander. This means being able to provide non-kinetic capabilities instead of lethal ones for a variety of reasons.

“What we did is during our [field training exercise, we] provided some information, notional intelligence type things, we allowed them to determine how they were going to actually do these operations,” said Maj. Richard Byrne, the battalion’s operations and training officer.

Expeditionary CEMA teams provide units with proximal access to digital targets.

The exercise tests not only the physical presence of the soldiers — meaning their ability to conduct proximal or localized effects on physical targets — but a remote aspect in a supporting role as well.

“It’s a complex set of skills that we need to be able to exercise in one shot so we have a portion here and a portion [at Fort Gordon, Georgia] communicating in a way that they would realistically communicate,” Akonom said.

Prior to coming to Muscatatuck, the unit did a field training exercise at Fort Gordon as part of another readiness check in which they were given the same information and network they’d see at the range.

Given cyberspace requires a lot of planning, officials wanted to give the unit practice and lead time prior to deploying to the training center.

“We want to give them a more realistic scenario where they have the information first, be able to conduct some analysis, do some [military decision making process] … and deploy to the scenario with information required to actually conduct the operation,” Byrne said.

While there was no physical force directly opposing the unit on the ground, they did provide and build a virtual network as well as emit signals into the environment. These emissions allow the unit to be able to practice sensing and then interpret those signals to be able to target a force in non-lethal ways.

Additionally, the unit benefited from seeing manifestations of their digital effects in the physical world — such as taking actions on the smart house.

“I think ECT-01 really was able to go to the next level because ... we were able to see effects in the operational environment from their actions in the digital environment and really see the cross-talk of their actions in the physical environment from maneuvering being relayed in the digital and then having an effect in the informational,” Sgt. First Class Andrew Farnsworth, who is supporting the exercise from Army Cyber Command, said. “You got that level of realism that they would be able to tell their supported commanders in whatever geographic space that they’re going to.”

What’s next?

Given the unit is new, there are still many uncertainties as to what happens next in terms of building out more units and how a unit becomes officially validated.

“Our [initial operating capability/full operating capability] criteria, because we’re new, are still being built. Between 780th [Military Intelligence Brigade] and Army Cyber [Command], those are still not set in stone yet,” Harshman said. “What we’re working towards is the validation piece of the ECT. The validation piece is what the 780th is driving for us.”

Following its trip to Muscatatuck, ECT-01 will likely do some mission readiness training with a partner. This will be critical because it was created to operate, integrate and support another unit.

ECT-05 will likely go to Defender Europe, a major Army exercise, and support a unit there following its trip to Muscatatuck, officials said.