The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will be creating a new military command composed of experts in the Information Technology (IT) amid the series of cyberattacks that hit government agencies.
AFP chief of staff Gen. Romeo Brawner, Jr. said the Cyber Security Command which he envisions will be composed of are individuals whom he describes as intelligent and very skillful in the cyber domain.
“We will try to recruit more IT personnel, especially the young people, who want to serve their country and join the Armed Forces of the Philippines. We are opening up our doors to these individuals who are highly skilled in terms of cyber, and we are relaxing some of the requirements,” said Brawner during a press conference with Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP).
For instance, he said the physical and medical examinations, which are strictly being implemented in the recruitment of soldiers, will be relaxed a bit for those applying in the military as cyber warriors.
The practice of observing relaxed recruitment rules for IT experts, according to Brawner, is a common practice in various military forces around the world.
“Because there is that general realization that this new breed of warriors do not necessarily have to be muscled, strong. What we need are individuals who are intelligent, very skillful in the cyber domain,” said Brawner.
The creation of the Cyber Command, he said, will consolidate all the cyber units of the three major services of the AFP-the Philippine Army, the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Air Force.
“As of now, we have islands, pockets of cyber security units, for instance the army depending the army network, in the air force and in the navy as well as the other smaller untis like the area command,” said Brawner
“What we need is to integrate all of these efforts because when a cyberattack happens, it does not just focus on one unit but it’s in the entire network that we would like to protect,” said Brawner.
He said he is now consulting with the Department of National Defense and the President for approval.
Different equipment
“The Cyber Command will not have that physical territory, but it will have the whole archipelago the whole Philippines as it territory because it will try to defend the cyber networks of the armed forces of the Philippines. I would like to emphasize that what they this cyber command will protect would be the networks ng AFP and not the entire county,” said Brawner,
“We will not be adding more soldiers with respect, when we say that we are going to hire cyber warriors, it’s not on top of the usual recruitment so in other words instead of recruiting soldiers for infantry battalions for instances, this time we will recruit cyber warriors,” he added.
The creation of the military command which will focus on cyber activities and protection, according to Brawner, entails different sets of equipment to boost the capability of the Philippine military that covers an archipelagic country.
He said the equipment that will be used will be included in the AFP modernization program procurement.
Daily cyberattacks
Brawner confirmed that the AFP has been the subject of numerous cyberattack attempts on a daily basis, some of the attempts are coming from abroad. \
“They want to breach into our networks but were happy to note that so far, we have been very successful in warding off in depending our network,” said Brawner
The creation of the Cyber Command, according to Brawner, will effectively boost the AFP’s capability in terms of cyber war.