Maj. Gen. Chris Eubank, commander of Network Enterprise Technology Command, said that effective June 11, soldiers and civilians will no longer be able to download data from the Army network to their laptops, cell phones and other devices through the commercial internet, Federal News Network reported Friday.
According to Eubank, the decision was influenced by basic cybersecurity and the maturity of the service branch’s virtual desktop initiative and overall network architecture.
“What we’re really going to shut down is the ability to go into the Army’s network and pull the information through the internet to your device, whether it’s a government furnished device or a personal device. What we’re doing is we’re going to cut off that access so you’ll still be able to get to those services, via your personal device using a Common Access Card (CAC) or from a government furnished piece of equipment using a CAC using the commercial internet, but it’s all going to be through virtual means,” Eubank told FNN in an interview.
“Using technologies in our bring-your-own-device, remote capable workforce portfolio like Azure virtual desktop, individuals will still be able to plug in via the commercial internet CAC enabled get to that information, but they will not be able to pull the information out of that environment. It will stay resident in in the cloud. When they disconnect their session, there’s nothing left behind [on the device]. It’s really about protecting both the network and our workforce,” the major general added.
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