The Air Force needs to certify its senior leaders to operate on the network, just as wing commanders are certified to fly the aircraft under their command, says Maj. Gen. Ronnie Hawkins, vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency. To that end, the Air Force also should decertify those individuals that do something wrong and require them to receive additional training before they can operate on the network again, he told attendees of AFA’s inaugural CyberFutures Conference taking place in National Harbor, Md, Thursday. “None of us would get on an aircraft with the knowledge that the pilot and everyone on that aircraft had not been certified and also recertified at some point or another,” said Hawkins. He added, “We should be at the same place in cyber and until we get there, we will have the same type of problems that we have now.”
When Donald Trump begins his second term as president in January, national security law experts anticipate he may return to his old habit of issuing orders to the military via social media, a practice which could cause confusion in the ranks.