The Department of the Air Force (DAF) plans to establish an operational technology (OT) office that will oversee the cybersecurity of control systems, commerce technologies, as well as embedding infrastructure, according to a senior Air Force official.
Speaking at GDIT Emerge in Washington, D.C. today, Lt. Col. Andrew Wonpat, acting deputy principal cyber advisor for the DAF, highlighted the growing threat to the OT sector and emphasized the importance of the new Cyber Resiliency Office of Control Systems (CROCS) for the service branch.
“[CROCS] really is responsible for coordinating the cybersecurity of our control systems and commerce technology, as well as embedding infrastructure. And there’s a lot that goes into that,” Wonpat said.
He explained that the office will have four main lines of effort: governance, workforce, visibility, and organization. The new office will look at “the tools and capabilities that we use to enable organization for the warfighter and for the infrastructure organizations” and will also “help transform the defense response,” for OT systems, Wonpat said.
CROCS will be a sister office to the department’s Cyber Resiliency Office of Weapons Systems (CROWS), established in 2017, which aims to enhance the cyber resiliency of Air Force weapon systems to protect against cyber threats throughout their lifecycle.
Day one for CROCS effort is still to be determined.
Wanda Jones-Heath, the Air Force’s principal cyber advisor, previously announced the creation of this new office during MeriTalk’s SAIC OutFront 2024 conference.
She explained that it “will be the office that will bring the entire picture back together and look at our mission thread analysis and say, this weapon system, this base structure, this business system, is critical to the mission thread.”
The funding for the new office comes from the DAF’s fiscal year 2024 and 2025 budgets, Jones-Heath explained.
