What is life like as a MOS 25D: Cyber Network Defender?

Graduated in April and went to a FORSCOM unit on a TRADOC post to quickly learn both of my hands are tied behind my back here.

Luckily I'm not in the vault. However, the NEC here is run 100% by a civilian contractor that does not allow or even consider Soldiers working alongside them. They control all of the laptops and strategic network (NIPR). They even control portions of SIPR. The only thing we have any sort of control over is our tacSIPR but we barely use that due to no sat time.

What irks me though is that the civilian NEC here uses a single tool for all types of network scanning... They trust the sole output of that tool absolutely. I clearly remember being taught at the 25D schoolhouse from day 1 to never trust the results of a single tool because attacks can be engineered to make that tool show no positives..

If the Army really wants to have Soldiers doing cyber security work, they are going to have to pry the cyber security job responsibilities out of the cold dead hands of the civilians that have slowly ceded control from Soldiers over the past decade or two. We will experience a lot of growing pains.

It's like they're trying to figure out how to build an airplane... While they're already in the air. The good idea fairies figured out, too late in the game, that it would a good idea to focus on cyber defense. A bunch of commands all started screaming "I'm gonna make this happen!" (ARCYBER, INSCOM, etc, etc) and with far too little cooperation/coordination and prior planning started throwing a bunch of stuff into the air. Flung some solders at all the stuff in the air, and commanded that we make it fly. It's getting better, finallly. But there is still a lot of confusion.

*cough* COMSEC *cough* #LifeInTheVault