Maryland and Estonian Civilians Take Up Arms Against Hackers

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/07/maryland-and-estonian-civilians-take-arms-against-hackers/67370/

By Aliya Sternstein
NextGov.com
July 25, 2013

Maryland has started a volunteer netwarfare squad that the Estonian 
ambassador likens to her country's groundbreaking civilian cyber reserve, 
which was assembled after neighboring Russia allegedly shut down the 
former Soviet state's Internet access in 2007.

The "denial of service attack" paralyzed key industry and government 
networks for two weeks, and U.S. officials have warned that a similar 
Internet blackout could happen here soon.

Maryland's 175th Network Warfare Squadron is part of the state's Air 
National Guard. The squad "provides operational technical, analytical and 
language support to Air Force and national efforts to identify and 
mitigate cyber intrusion activities on Department of Defense networks," 
Maj. Wayde Minami, Maryland Air National Guard public affairs officer, 
said in an email.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation 
that would position a National Guard "Cyber and Computer Network Incident 
Response Team" in every state.  Members of the National Guard Association 
of the United States backed the measure. They noted that the "bill creates 
the teams by shifting positions and operations and maintenance funds to 
the Guard. No new budgetary authority would be created. Defense officials, 
according to the Guard association, oppose the conditions, arguing the 
teams would sap resources from department cyber efforts.

[...]



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