Brigade 2 under the Cyber Warfare Command (aka Command 86) is tasked with conducting reconnaissance, information warfare, and cyber warfare, protecting command information system, managing and supervising military and national network infrastructures, ensuring information technology for many important offices of the Party, the State, and the Military in the South, taking down and handling bad contents in cyberspace, and thwarting hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy and plots of enhancing “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” and “depoliticising” our Military to defend the Party’s ideological foundation. In addition to advantages, the Brigade has been confronted with a lot of difficulties. The hostile forces have been stepping up their sabotage schemes against our Party, State, and Military, particularly in cyberspace. The military and national information networks have become objects of attack of reactionary forces both at home and abroad for a long time. Meanwhile, the Brigade has just been founded and in the process of consolidation and development; its specialised means and equipment for cyber warfare together with its facilities are still limited. The Brigade’s cadres and employees have been carefully recruited and basically trained, but they lack hands-on experience. Against such a backdrop, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have synchronously, drastically implemented guidelines and measures for improving the Brigade’s synergy, combat readiness, reconnaissance, supervision, and capacity to grasp and correctly anticipate situations, and proactively handle issues in cyberspace to make significant contributions to safeguarding national benefits, firmly protecting the Homeland, and avoiding falling into passivity.

First of all, the Brigade has focused on well carrying out the work of political education and ideological management to build up its cadres, employees, and soldiers’ political zeal and determination. The Brigade is the first force encountering the hostile forces’ sabotage activities in cyberspace every hour of every day; therefore, it has attached special importance to raising its cadres, employees, and soldiers’ awareness of the Party’s guidelines, the State’s policies and laws, resolutions and directives by the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence, military-defence work, and especially the task of defending national sovereignty and security in cyberspace. It has frequently directed its offices and units to enhance political and legal education for their cadres, employees, and soldiers via various measures in accordance with their staff members’ educational backgrounds and working environment. In this regard, emphasis has been placed on clarifying the hostile forces’ plots and artifices as well as difficulties, challenges, goals, and task requirements for the Homeland construction and protection in cyberspace. At the same time, the Brigade has stepped up the Determination to Win Emulation Movement in line with the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle to create spillover effects on cadres, party members, and the masses so that they would heighten a sense of responsibility, unity, and determination to overcome difficulties, improve their revolutionary morality, and preserve and bring into play the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period. It has also well conducted the work of internal political protection to prevent enemies from collecting our State and Military’s secrets in cyberspace. As a result, all cadres and soldiers have shown their political zeal and great determination, kept their mind on their work, strictly observed the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and regulations on cyber security, and readily undertaken and successfully fulfilled their assigned tasks.

Besides, the Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have concentrated on improving forces’ information safety assurance and combat readiness capacity in cyberspace as a determinant to the Brigade’s task performance. Offices and units of the Brigade have grasped and strictly followed directives and guiding documents by the Ministry of National Defence, the Cyber Warfare Command, and competent agencies on combat readiness and information safety assurance in cyberspace, while practising combat projects and stringently maintaining regulations on duty. Moreover, the Brigade has closely maintained regulations on supervising and grasping situations in cyberspace, opportunely developed cyber and information warfare projects, proactively given advice to its higher echelons, and cooperated with offices and units in its stationed areas in implementing defensive projects and gradually establishing a firm posture of cyber warfare. At the same time, it has proactively taken down and neutralised negative information, and spread positive information, thereby making contributions to orientating public opinion on the Internet and social networks. More importantly, it has organised its forces into teams on duty scientifically under the spirit of “being on duty like entering battle stations” and “successfully handling one incident like gaining one feat of arms,” heightened a sense of discipline and responsibility amongst its forces, and opportunely dealt with all situations, thus absolutely ensuring cyber security in any circumstance. It has also organised cyber warfare exercises with the participation of civil information technology forces, digital maps-based operational staff exercises, and cyberspace field exercises at one level or various levels; it has held and taken part in 12 combat readiness posture shifting exercises in cyberspace with a lot of units both inside and outside the Military and the absolute safety, which has been highly appreciated by its higher echelons and friendly units.

The Brigade’s Party Committee and Command have frequently paid due regard to strengthening training work to improve cadres and employees’ professional competence. Due to the particularities of their assigned tasks, cadres and employees of the Brigade are recruited not only from military units and schools, but also from educational facilities both at home and abroad; therefore, there are differences in their professional competence. That has been creating barriers to the timely satisfaction of the rapid development of science and technology and the requirements set by cyber warfare and information security. It should be noted the task of cyber warfare always witnesses developments with the more demanding requirements and increasingly modern technical equipment. Meanwhile, experience of a number of the Brigade’s cadres is still limited. Thus, on the one hand, the Brigade has thoroughly grasped its higher echelons’ resolutions, directives, and guidance on training work and developed action plans for those documents. On the other hand, it has adhered to the training motto of “basics, practicality, solidity, safety, and thrift.” It has required its offices and units to synchronously, comprehensively organise training courses and programmes for all troops. Significance has been attached to holding specialised, intensive training courses according to each task and each type of equipment in accordance with combat reality and the Brigade’s organisational structure. The Brigade has directed its offices and units to formulate specific training plans and schedules, organise refresher courses for cadres, approve lesson plans, and invest in constructing training facilities. In the training process, the Brigade has circulated training courses to ensure the participation of all troops. It has selected experienced cadres to take charge of important training contents and provide assistance for new cadres. Researching and analysing a number of recent typical cyber attacks, particularly in military and political environments worldwide, the Brigade has designed basic exercises for its troops and included them in its simulation system for its affiliates’ practice. At the same time, it has enhanced both regular and irregular inspections of training work to make objective evaluations, opportunely rectify weaknesses and shortcomings, and seek for remedial measures. Thanks to those above-mentioned measures, cadres and employees of the Brigade have always mastered equipment’s technical and tactical features and well exploited the existing equipment. Staff members of the Brigade have also improved their skills in cyberspace reconnaissance and mastered procedures for checking information safety, testing information technology systems, maintaining and repairing computers, and handling evil contents on the Internet.

As a new force that is built to move straight to modernity, the Brigade has been provided with a large amount of new-generation signal equipment. Hence, it has attached special importance to managing and exploiting its equipment, and applying many technological solutions. While bringing into play its technical cadres and employees’ capabilities in maintaining, repairing, and effectively using modern technical equipment, the Brigade has recommended its higher echelons to deploy its staff members to study at telecommunications enterprises both inside and outside the Military in order to improve their capacity to master advanced equipment and technologies and manage military information and digital networks as the basis for ensuring offices and units’ information and network safety. It has always proactively ensured and inspected information, software, and system safety, closely monitored the quality of information technology equipment within military units, and maintained coordination in detecting and settling incidents relating to information safety and network security. It has closely cooperated with relevant offices and units in upgrading and synchronously developing information technology infrastructures and guaranteeing smooth, safe connection, while taking part in establishing an information technology system for commanding and operating COVID-19 prevention and control work in its stationed area and giving instructions to other units on employing this system. Besides, it has directed its offices and units to strictly comply with regulations on maintaining, storing, repairing, and upgrading technical equipment. The Brigade’s affiliates have been required to step up the Campaign entitled “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment effectively, sustainably, safely, economically, and ensuring traffic safety” and encourage their cadres and soldiers to promote and apply technical initiatives and innovations to training work and cyber security to meet their task requirements in any situation.

Sr. Col., DSc TRAN NGOC ANH, Commander of the Brigade