Marine Corps looking for a few good cyber warriors

WASHINGTON — A virtual training range developed for the Marine Corps to prepare troops for cyber operations has been adapted to do everything from prepare for offensive actions to secure networks defensively against hacking threats like the Heartbleed security bug, Marine officials said.

The network was established by defense contractor ManTech within the last year for about $9.1 million. Maintained at an office park just south of Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., it is used to train not only troops who focus on cyber operations, but Marines who focus on communications, intelligence and operational planning.

“Conceptually people might have a harder time picturing this battle space, but it is battle space,” said Col. Gregory T. Breazile, the director of the service’s cyber and electronic warfare integration division. “When we in the Marine Corps look at maneuver warfare, this is maneuver warfare. It’s fighting the enemy’s weak points and exploiting those weak points so that you can defeat your adversary.”

The range stands as an example of how the Pentagon is rethinking cyber operations as hacking draws increasingly attention as a national security risk. A new Defense Department cyber warfare plan released in April explicitly called for the Defense Department to “be able to use cyber operations to disrupt an adversary’s command and control networks, military-related critical infrastructure and weapons capabilities” if directed by the president.

The adoption of the new strategy followed calls by senior military officers to consider offensive cyber operations as a cost-effective weapon. For years before that, they had been cast mainly as a defensive need required to prevent catastrophic network attacks.