THE PERSONNEL21 ST CENTURY PARTNERSHIPS AIR POWER 2017 123Identifying recruits
with the potential to
play a part in cyber
defence operations
is essential to
enhancing the RAF’s
rich talent pool
(PHOTO: SAC LAUREN
GALLOWAY/© CROWN
COPYRIGHT)Air Cdre Wariner also explains how the RAF has
adopted a Cyber Protect Team construct across all of
its aircraft platforms and bases. These teams are truly
multidisciplinary, made up of users, administrators, and
technical and security staffs across the range of different
systems used. “The need is to understand our critical
information flows in order to identify our vulnerabilities
and to bolster our defences in the right areas,” he says.
“Equally, it is not just technical means that assure our
capabilities, but the importance of robust and practised
business resilience and disaster recovery plans.”
On operations, the RAF protects itself through
the deployment of expeditionary Cyber Protect Teams
and a specialist Centralised Cyber Protect Team at 591
Signals Unit. The depth of Cyber Protect’s capability is
tuned to be able to assure operations across the various
steps of prepare, protect, detect, react, recover. “But,”
says Air Cdre Wariner, “it is not only the RAF aircraft
platforms and systems that we protect; individuals
(regular, reserve, civilian and contractors) use personal
electronic devices that increase the cyberattack
surface through social media and other vulnerabilities.”