Keynote - Jeff Banner

Over the last few years I have repeatedly had to point out the fact there has been a concerted effort toward going after Russian (and foreign in general) hacking, interference in our elections, and the information operations directed at the American people in general. This video highlights one of those efforts from what was a National Cyber Protection Team's (N-CPT) sister squadron to my own N-CPT. I know several of the folks who executed this mission, we collaborated on many of the findings and lessons learned as we prepared for future hunt forward missions of our own. Their mission was highly successful and it marked a paradigm shift in how to best employ the N-CPT construct in the future.

As "Bruce" put it, the N-CPTs are charged to do so much more than helping out international partners. Last 2018, I led the planning and preparation for the 2018 election response posturing in case the DHS was overwhelmed. Our N-CPT was tapped to be the first team to augment the DHS if required. The N-CPTs are also trying to overcome a lot of other challenges to find ways to assist those who manage our critical infrastructure, share information, and enable those who are authorized to take the fight to those nation states wishing to do us harm through cyberspace. Take a look and try to understand the challenges in cyber from a international perspective and consider how our own laws and federal organizational makeup can prevent these cyber operators from protecting our national systems.

Today, the DoD is preparing to employ even more capabilities to help the cyber community share information, intelligence, and situational awareness. Already there are several state's national guard CPTs working directly with CYBERCOM and collaborating on their state's election systems. They already seen success by discovering malicious activity, sharing it with the other participating states, and finding the same activity.