News United States Air Force
 US, Indonesian forces hunt for cybersecurity threatsPublished July 30, 2019
                        
                        By Army Staff Sgt. Katie Gray
                        
                        
                        117th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
                **JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFNS) --**
                Service members from the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Indonesian military finished the third annual Information System and Technology Exchange, or ISTX, during a closing ceremony in Jakarta, July 26.
The exchange falls under the Hawaii National Guard's State Partnership Program and is one of approximately 22 annual exercises between Hawaii and Indonesia. The ISTX is one of the newest initiatives and aims to "share best practices, assist in cybersecurity doctrine development and enhance the cybersecurity capabilities to effectively defend and protect critical cyber information infrastructure from malicious virus and cyber intrusions," said Army Capt. Marco Hartanto, the Hawaii State Partnership Program director.
This year, the exercise moved from theory to tactical and foundation-based and the key theme became cyber forensics, or threat hunting.
In this way the ISTX has two benefits. First, it provides experience and training to an increasingly global world with global problems.
"Cybersecurity has become really important for both governments, for the military and as a whole for society," said Staff Sgt. Marc Masuno, Hawaii Air National Guardsman and ISTX subject matter expert. "ISTX was created in order to further (the U.S. and Indonesia's) capabilities in terms of cybersecurity and information technology, and so this was created as a mechanism to collaborate and to share expertise and knowledge with both nations."
Secondly, as nations react to cybersecurity issues such as malware and ransomware, the collaboration meets the goals of a tentative National Guard Bureau future vision. Instead of just state-to-country, the SPP would become multi-state-multi-country, Capt. Hartanto said.
This year's ISTX leveraged interstate and joint service support with the involvement of Missouri Air National Guard members and RockNSM, an open-source cybersecurity platform developed by the Missouri National Guard.
"RockNSM is a project put together by the Missouri Cyber Team initially and it's now supported through the community," said Tech. Sgt. Krik Koelzer, Missouri Air National Guard member.
The ISTX team used the platform because of its ease-of-use and versatility. The platform helps bridge the gap between public and private critical infrastructure partners.
"It's very encouraging and inspiring to see them building their capability and also being so willing to share their information and ask questions. It brings me a lot of joy and hope in regards to the cybersecurity landscape overall worldwide," Masuno said. "Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and the more that we are all able to build our defenses, the better protected the overall global landscape would be."LR 



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Information System and Technology Exchange 



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Hawaii National Guard's State Partnership Program 



cybersecurity doctrine development 



enhance the cybersecurity capabilities 



cyber forensics 



threat hunting 



collaboration 



SPP 



State Partnership Program 



Indonesia