The first cyberspace weapons system, the defensive Air Force Intranet Control (AFINC) Weapon System, reached full operational capability (FOC) on Jan. 7, Air Force Space Command said Tuesday.
The AFINC system consists of 16 Gateway Suites, 15 SIPRNET Nodes, 200+ Service Delivery Points, and two Integrated Management Suites. This is all operated by the 26th Network Operations Squadron (NOS) at Gunter Annex, Montgomery, Ala.
Achieving FOC means the system is fully capable to serve as the top-level defensive boundary and end point for all network traffic into the Air Force Information Network, the Air Force said. The AFINC system controls the flow of all external and inter-base traffic through standard, centrally managed gateways.
The new system replaces and consolidates over 100 regionally managed disparate Air Force network entry points into 16 centrally managed access points for all traffic through the service’s network. It allows “greater agility to take defensive actions across the network,” the Air Force said.
AFINC was designated as an official weapon system by the Air Force Chief of Staff in March 2013 (Defense Daily, April 18, 2013) and achieved initial operational capability (IOC) in May 2014.
As both the weapon system and the 26th NOS have grown, their missions set now includes intelligence gathering, cyberspace surveillance and reconnaissance, interdiction, and security.
Col Pamela Woolley, 26th Cyberspace Operations Group commander, said, “As the first line of defense for our network, the 26th NOS team is responsible for more than one billion firewall, web, and email blocks per week from suspicious and adversarial sources.”
“This is a great achievement for the Air Force and the first cyberspace weapon system to achieve FOC. We look forward to continued rapid progress and maturation of the Air Force Cyberspace mission,” Brig. Gen. Stephen Whiting, HQ AFSPC Director of Integrated Air, Space, Cyberspace and ISR Operations, said after he declared the AFINC system FOC.
The AFINC system serves over one million Air Force users at 237 global sites.