{"id":19819,"date":"2023-07-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19819"},"modified":"2023-07-23T06:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T06:48:55","slug":"partnerships-a-must-in-shoring-up-cyber-defenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19819","title":{"rendered":"Partnerships a Must in Shoring Up Cyber Defenses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Neely, the adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, illustrates a point during a panel discussing cyber and information warfare at the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program 30th Anniversary Conference at National Harbor, Maryland, July 18, 2023. The panel\u2019s moderator Navy Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, director of plans and policy for the U.S. Cyber Command, JeeYoung Oh, director of Threat Management and Operational Coordination for the Department of State and Royal Canadian Navy Commodore Matthew Bowen, a vice director for plans and policy for the U.S. Cyber Command, joined Neely in discussing how partnerships help build resiliency in cyber and information domains. The SPP program pairs Guard elements with partner nations worldwide, building enduring relationships through mutual training exchanges that strengthen security, improve interoperability and enhance readiness of U.S. and partner forces. Established in July 1993, the program began with less than a dozen partnerships and has grown to include 100 countries representing more than 50 percent of the world\u2019s nations.
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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. \u2013 In today\u2019s ever-changing digital landscape, cyberspace is all-encompassing, presenting new and emerging threats surpassing national borders in scale and complexity. Consequently, global partnerships will be vital in securing the pivotal battlefield of tomorrow, cyber officials recently said during a panel discussion at the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program 30th Anniversary Conference.<\/p>\n

But those same challenges should also be viewed as opportunities, said Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Neely, the adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard and one of the panelists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for the SPP, each country is on a journey [in cyberwarfare], and it\u2019s at different levels on that path,\u201d he said, adding that it presents an opportunity for Guard elements to deepen trust among current and future SPP partners.<\/p>\n

Neely, a master cyberspace officer, pointed to the Illinois Guard\u2019s partnership with Poland, one of the original 13 SPP partnerships established in 1993, as an example of a beneficial collaboration that grew to include cyber operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last 30 years, we talked about what we did in the early years of the pairing and co-deploying with the Polish military in Iraq and Afghanistan,\u201d Neely said. \u201cBut it was not too long ago the Polish military really started on this [cyber] journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, Polish defense officials visited U.S. cyber units, including those in the Illinois Guard, observing how they approached the contested domain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always impressed with all our state partners and how they look at what we have in the United States, and then take the best of it and use it as a starting point [to] really move their programs forward,\u201d Neely said.<\/p>\n

The cyber partnership paid off, the major general added. Poland\u2019s young yet formidable cyber program was recently ranked sixth in a global cyber defense index that gauges the degree to which the world\u2019s major economies have adopted technology best practices to \u201cadvance resilience against cyberattacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neely also stressed the importance of building capabilities through exercises like Cyber Shield, the largest unclassified cyber exercise in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you feel you don\u2019t have that much capability, it doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 bring your best and brightest, and we\u2019ll work through it,\u201d Neely said, adding that cyber exercises, in general, have an abundance of training associated with them. \u201cIf you want to build capacity or a new line of effort, the cyber-defense area is a great way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And many Guard members also work in civilian cyber operations, bringing a different perspective and skill set to the cyber realm.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany countries around the world \u2013 like the United States \u2013 have critical infrastructure owned by the private sector,\u201d said Neely, \u201cand how do you build an understanding in those countries that may only be focused on the military application of cyber?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, Neely suggested, lies in that dual military and civilian experience many Guard cyber teams bring with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an opportunity to expand on that \u2013 given our civilian capabilities that we bring in, especially from a homeland security perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The panel also discussed the new and dynamic challenges presented by autonomous disinformation and cyber-attacks. The latter of which Neely faced as the Illinois Guard\u2019s top officer after Russia breached the Illinois election system in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about cyber, we\u2019re not just talking about blinky lights,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are information operations campaigns, and across the network, this environment that we\u2019re all living in is going to be pervasive going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident, he said, was a pivotal moment not only for Illinois, but the nation too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we really need to be thinking about [those issues] when we talk about our national security,\u201d said Neely, pointing to how political meddling \u2013 of any kind \u2013 can be divisive to a nation.<\/p>\n

The panel also included U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, director of plans and policy with U.S. Cyber Command, JeeYoung Oh, director of Threat Management and Operational Coordination for the Department of State, and Royal Canadian Navy Commodore Matthew Bowen, a vice director for plans and policy with U.S. Cyber Command.<\/p>\n

The nature of the SPP, Bowen told attendees, enables Guard elements and its partners to build mutual cyber resiliency through information sharing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything we can do to make an adversary\u2019s return on investment more expensive is a benefit,\u201d Bowen said. \u201cWhen we share information, we are generating resiliency, addressing vulnerabilities, fixing some of these problems, and doing it collectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his closing statement, Neely told attendees \u2013 comprised of mostly senior military leaders \u2013 to be open to fresh ideas when facing cyber challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us were born with an iPhone in our hands, right?\u201d he said. \u201cSo as senior leaders, sometimes we don\u2019t get real comfortable with pushing the edge of technology and change.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the rapid pace of a hyper-connected world, Neely concluded, requires a new mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cI challenge each of you to think about cyber differently because the threats are changing so quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to continually be looking at that going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

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State Partnership Program<\/a><\/p>\n

State Partnership Program’s 30th Anniversary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Neely, the adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, illustrates a point during a panel discussing cyber and information warfare at the Department of Defense National Guard State Partnership Program 30th Anniversary Conference at National Harbor, Maryland, July 18, 2023. The panel\u2019s moderator Navy Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, director of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19821,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19822,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19819\/revisions\/19822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}