Critical infrastructure such as water, electricity, and sewer on most Air Force bases is highly vulnerable to cyber attack, Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, USAF’s top uniformed cyber officer, told House lawmakers in testimony Thursday. “Right now, those systems are very much wide open,” said Webber. He added, “We haven’t even taken the low-hanging fruit steps” to address this issue. In most cases, off-site, private entities provide these utilities, said Webber. The Air Force is, however, working with the National Laboratory to identify infrastructure vulnerabilities in order to understand the infrastructure networks better, he said. The Navy faces the same issue. “A lot of this [infrastructure] is single source into a base,” explained Vice Adm. Bernard McCullough, Fleet Cyber Command boss. He continued, “If you take that capacity away, you have some capability on backup power generation, but very little in other resources.” (Webber’s prepared remarks)
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.