After years of cutting back instruction on how to sail by the stars, the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, has reincorporated three hours of lessons on celestial navigation into the advanced navigation class required for all 2nd class midshipmen, an Academy spokesperson is quoted as saying. Maryland's Capital Gazette first reported on the classes, which will help protect ships and sailors if computers fail as a result of cyber attack or other malfunction.

Celestial navigation is being reintroduced at the U.S. Naval Academy."Among many things that are considered when reinstituting a core competency into a navigation curriculum is the idea that GPS becomes inoperational, and that could result from anything ranging from a fire to operational error to system degradation or a cyberattack," says Naval Academy Spokesperson Cmdr. John Schofield. In sanitized military parlance, that may be referred to as "situation normal, all (fouled) up" or SNAFU.

"The Navy Networking Environment consists of more than 500,000 end user devices; an estimated 75,000 network devices (servers, domain controllers); and approximately 45,000 applications and systems across three security enclaves," Vice Adm. Jan E. Tighe, commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, said in testimony before a congressional subcommittee in April.

The Navy is not alone in recognizing the potential dangers digital aggressors pose. The Army, Air Force and Coast Guard have all set out plans to defend their systems against threats in cyberspace.