Defending cyberspace

For Staff Officer Navy Cyber Operations Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Price, no two days are the same.

CAPTION: Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Price is the Staff Officer Cyber Operations for the Navy’s Information Warfare Branch in Canberra. Story by Acting Sub Lieutenant Jack Meadows. Photo by Petty Officer Bradley Darvill.

Working at Navy’s Information Warfare team, she ensures Navy has the right people, skills, equipment and resources to combat the growing threat of cyber information warfare to Defence’s warfighting capability.

Chief Petty Officer Price said she was privileged to be part of a dynamic team.

“Cyber is such a fast-paced and evolving field and with regularly emerging new capabilities and threats needing to be analysed and understood,” Chief Petty Officer Price said.

“After being posted to Directorate of Cyber and Space, I was inspired by the work being carried out by the team in actively defending Defence networks against rapidly evolving cyber threats and ensuring that all our systems are cyber-worthy and ready.

“Cyber capability allows us to defend our networks to ensure they are available and capable.”

As Australia’s dependence on digital systems has grown, traditional warfighting domains of air, land, and sea have evolved to include space and information/cyberspace.

A key objective of Information Warfare is to achieve information superiority over an adversary to gain an advantage which can be exploited in the traditional warfighting domains.

There are a number of ways to get involved in Defence cyber, including the Cyber Gap Program, which is aimed at students who are studying or enrolling in a tertiary cyber qualification.

The ADF Cyber Gap program runs until 2024, and for successful candidates, Defence will pay students’ course fees for 12 months, offer cyber work experience, cyber mentoring and help with job applications.

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