Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas -- Guarding the Air Force’s vast cyberspace domain on a daily basis is no easy task, even for highly trained cyber warriors, but the 426th Network Warfare Squadron readily volunteers for the chance to excel.
The 960th Cyberspace Operations Group, Detachment 2 began on March 1, 2013 with only one airman. Exactly one year later, the 426th NWS moniker was adopted and it became the Reserve Associate Unit to the 33rd NWS, the Air Force’s only Defensive Cyberspace Operations unit, guarding the Air Force Information Network. In that capacity, it works side-by-side with the active duty component to provide real-time actions against Air Force network and computer intrusions for prevention, detection, and response.
The 426th NWS aids in providing 24/7/365 cyber defense to the AFIN worldwide across more than 120 bases with nearly 1,000,000 users and 900,000 workstations, as well as a variety of third party enclaves.
The Guardians of the Grid “drive” the $535 million AFIN Cyber Defense weapon system one UTA weekend a month and, in the long-term, will provide operational capabilities during multiple unit training assembly weekends.
In its short three-year history, the 426th NWS has made swift strides to meet the full operating capacity goal of “operating 20% of 33rd NWS missions.” It has hired 104 full and part-time individuals of the 157 Airmen authorized; trained 19 airmen to full ACD-Operator status, and supported more than 3,500 active duty-led missions.
Thirty-nine positions in the unit are full- time Air Reserve Technicians, who support both daily ACD operations and help transition seamlessly to reserve-led weekend mission execution.
The unit’s Director of Operations is leading the effort to institute the DODIN’s newest cyber security tool, JRSS or Joint Regional Security Stack, into the ACD weapon system to include training, tabletop tests and installation.
Additionally, the unit’s director of maintenance is developing the first-ever ACD specialty code internal training program to benefit both Reservists and our active duty component counterparts. These Guardians are not slowing down!
The 426th NWS will continue to lead the Reserve cyber defense charge. The unit will focus future efforts on attracting and retaining qualified personnel in both full time and part time positions, increasing the number of DCO mission-ready crews while expanding weekend coverage, supporting AFRC cyber initiatives such as the multi-million dollar DCO simulation environment, and continuing robust full-time support to the 33rd NWS.
As its motto states, the 426th NWS fully remains Committed to Excellence!