39th IOS honored with Cybersecurity Award Published Oct. 27, 2011 By Staff Sgt. Richard A. Williams Jr. Air Force Public Affairs Agency WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Air Force Space Command's 39th Information Operations Squadron members were honored with a 2011 U.S. National Cybersecurity Innovation Award during a ceremony here Oct. 21. The award, presented by officials from the SANS Institute at the 2011 National Cybersecurity Conference, recognizes innovations undertaken by civilian companies and government agencies to develop and deploy processes or technologies that have not been deployed effectively before, shows a significant impact on reducing cyber risk, can be scaled quickly to serve large numbers of people and may be adopted efficiently by other organizations. The 39th IOS at Hurlburt Field, Fla., is a detachment of the 688th Information Operations Wing at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and was one of 14 recipients of the annual award. The squadron received the award for "Developing World-Class Cyber Talent" through its use of cyber flight simulators and training ranges allowing students to conduct defensive cyber operations against real-time network attacks in a controlled training environment, officials said. In the simulations, students use a graduated set of hands-on skills to find hidden flags, analyze security flaws, remotely access other computers within the network, analyze evidence to determine attacker activities, and defend their networks as they move to the next level of exercise.