Air Force to Send Cyber Focus Teams to Space Force

The U.S. Air Force’s Cyber Resiliency Office for Weapon Systems will deploy cyber focus teams to the U.S. Space Force to secure the military space service’s existing and future platforms.

Speaking at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association’s Space Force IT Day, Col. Joseph Wingo, chief of cyber and spectrum operations for the Space Force, said the CFTs will offer their cyber resiliency expertise to engineers and program executive officers designing satellites and ground systems. The deployment of the CFTs will begin by the end of fiscal year 2023 or at the start of FY 2024, C4ISRNET reported.

CROWS, established in 2017, originally created CFTs to support Air Force program executive offices. According to Joe Bradley, the director of CROWS, each team consists of up to seven specialists that help engineers, logistics professionals and program managers conduct cyber health assessments to identify and address vulnerabilities. 

The plan to send CFTs to the Space Force was unveiled following a meeting between CROWS officials and Space Force program teams in January.