By Petty Officer 2nd Class David Finley

Special to the News-Herald

Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command celebrated its 10th anniversary recently at the Global Network Operations and Security Center.

The event highlighted the evolution and accomplishments of NCDOC during the past decade.

Capt. Sean Heritage, NCDOC commanding officer, welcomed current command members, including military, civilians, and contractors, as well as former command members, and special guests including the Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson.

“Today we take time out to express our gratitude to those who went before, those who were bold enough to develop capability that many did not know we needed, and those who worked so hard to create the wake that we enjoy riding,” Heritage said.

“As we acknowledge the significant progress made over the years, it is equally important to visualize the future as we do our part to ensure this mission area evolves at a pace consistent with the ever-changing world around us.”

NCDOC began as the Navy Computer Incident Response Team, with five people in the information warfare-defensive division of the Fleet Information Warfare Center in October 1995.

By 2003, it had grown to 250 people and had become the operations department of FIWC.

In June 2003, the NAVCIRT division merged with the Navy Component Task Force – Computer Network Defense and became the 30-person NAVCIRT Task Force.

On January 10, 2006, NAVCIRT was established as a command under the Naval Network Warfare Command and became NCDOC.

Today, NCDOC is a force of more than 500 military, government civilian and contractor cyber warriors.

NCDOC’s first Commanding Officer, Capt. Steven Carder (retired), shared memories of the challenges he and his staff faced while standing up the command and posed questions to the current staff.

“Are you challenging the conventional? Are you leading the dialogue? Are you pushing the edge of the envelope?” Carder asked. “This is what we are expecting of you. This is what the Navy is expecting of you.”

During the event, Jim Granger, director of the future outcomes cell and a plankowner of NCDOC, and Jason Tant, who worked at NCDOC from 2004 to 2011 as a computer network security engineer and as the command’s network forensics technical director, became the first to be inducted into the NCDOC’s Cyber Warrior Hall of Fame.

“The Navy is built upon strong traditions and as important as it is to celebrate our history, it is no less important to chart our future and create new traditions in keeping with our progress,” Heritage said.

“As cyber missions continue to grow in importance, the future of NCDOC seems certain and will continue to play a critical role in the defense of Navy networks.”

During the event, Heritage received a new command flag designed for the 10th anniversary.

NCDOC’s mission is to coordinate, monitor, and oversee the defense of Navy computer networks and systems and to be responsible for accomplishing Computer Network Defense missions as assigned by the commander of the U.S. Tenth Fleet and the Commander of U.S. Cyber Command.