SGAUS President Warns That Every State Must Leverage All Assets to Combat Cyber Threats

In this compelling follow-up episode of Commanders Briefing, we continue our discussion with Lt. Colonel (MD) Barry Greene, President of The State Guard Association of The United States. This segment delves into one of the most urgent national security challenges of our time—cybersecurity—and explores how Governors and their states should respond to this escalating threat. With cyberattacks targeting essential infrastructure, the stakes are higher than ever, impacting not just our way of life but our very survival.Lt. Colonel Greene underscores the critical need for cybersecurity preparedness, emphasizing that every state in the nation is under constant cyber attack. From hospitals and power grids to water treatment plants and state agencies, hackers target infrastructure with the potential to cause massive financial, operational, and even human losses. He warns that a successful cyber attack could have catastrophic consequences, citing one case where hackers attempted to manipulate a water treatment facility’s chemicals—a breach that could have turned drinking water into poison for an entire population.Given these threats, Lt. Colonel Greene argues that Governors must leverage every available resource, including their National Guard and State Guard, to bolster cyber defense capabilities. He believes that Cyber Defense must become a core mission of The State Military.Listen to the whole clip as we dive into who’s responsible for these attacks and the current situation of The Cyber War.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is made possible by Dustin Colgrove and Ben
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com forward slash State Defense Force.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
In the last decade, one new mission the National Guard
in US military has taken on is cyber defense due
to a growing threat on US infrastructure from nation states
and rogue actors. Many state defense.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Forces have stepped up to assist in this mission by
creating units in order to augment National Guard forces and
their missions. Maryland Defense Force, the Virginia Defense Force, and
a few other state defense forces have created such units.
How important do you feel this new threat is to

(00:51):
the United States and the States?

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Okay, you asked several questions bundled. I'm going to try
to pick it apart and answer it as best as
I can. So the first thing is you said that
the military only over the last ten years has seen
this as a threat stood this up. That's not true.
The military has known this has been a threat since

(01:13):
the nineteen seventies. I know that because my father was
in the military and dealing with it in the nineteen seventies,
and he's now in his eighties and I still hear
him telling me going it's.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
The same thing I was dealing with. It's just newer equipment.
And it's true. America's had enemies in cyberspace going back
to the nineteen seventies.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
The public is more aware of it now because the
media has taken more interest in it. But also the
stakes are higher because, frankly, the lack of proactive motion
on a lot of our cyber defenses has come to
roost in unprecedented losses not just in money, but ultimately

(01:56):
is going to be in life, in human life based
on these cyber attacks. And so this isn't about whether
or not the military should have a role in it,
or whether or not the SDF should have a role
in it. It is the duty of every governor, state
or territorial to get as many cyber defense people as
they can, using whatever mechanism they can, through any state agency,

(02:20):
any national guard, any state guard they can because right
now they are getting hammered, and their agencies are getting
hammered because they've all been breached, they've all been hacked,
they're all getting hit by ransomware. The hospitals are being attacked,
the mutilities are being attacked. It's all happening here and
now and these attacks, like I said, are not only

(02:44):
causing risk to human life, they will eventually cause massive
losses to human life. One of the attacks in Florida
actually tried to poison the water supply. This is real,
and for those of us in the cyber industry, we're
kind of There's there's an old story that I was

(03:04):
told years and years ago by a fellow who had
done four tours with the Special Forces in Vietnam, where
he said, at one point, when a bunch of our
advisors got there in the early sixties, he goes, we
got off of this first transport and we were all
in perfectly starched uniforms and perfect haircuts and perfect shaves,

(03:24):
and we step off and some of the first people
we meet are French Foreign Legion, and they've been there
for years, and they're all bearded and covered in grime,
and their uniforms are tattered, and most of them don't
wear name tapes or even ranks, and they all have
cigarettes out of their out of their mouths, and they're

(03:46):
looking at us like a bunch of cherries because we were.
And one of the look at us without even taking
the cigarette out of his mouth and just went welcome
to the fight. For those of us in the cyber universe,
are looking at most members of the military cyber community.

(04:10):
For those of us that have been part of the
cyber defense world for more than twenty years, are going
welcome to the fight. And by the way, isn't that
a sweet clean uniform that you've got. When you've got
actual dirt on your nails, then we'll teach you some
real soldier skills. This is effectively where we are as
a nation is you have a very small part of

(04:34):
the military community and now the cyber community, those of
us that have been doing it in the private sector
for years and going. This stuff has been going on
for a while. Okay. I do battle with North Korea
on a daily basis in a polo shirt daily in
a polo shirt. I have great respect and love for

(04:57):
all of my brothers and sisters that have deployed to
the third eighth Parallel. I have great respect and love
for them that they put themselves in harm's way and
have held the line with North Korea. I'm here to
tell you North Korea has been over that line electronically
for decades and are are doing nothing but damage and

(05:19):
robbing us robbing our people. Okay, four years and now
I hear folks from the military community going, yeah, this
is becoming a real issue. No, I was dealing with
North Korea's twenty years ago before it was Kim Jong.
This Kim Jong. It was a different Kim Jong, and
I was dealing with him then, okay, and not personally,

(05:40):
but just they were in our civilian systems constantly, constantly
hitting us with random ransomware and bot scans and viruses
and all kinds of awful worms and payloads. And yeah,
it's just been going on. So the fact that the
military is now in the public's eye responding to this

(06:03):
is wonderful. Again, I'm French foreign legion sitting there watching
all of these folks in clean uniforms get off going him. Okay,
maybe they'll help, we hope. So we can only be optimistic.
They're fresh troops, they may actually have ammunition for those
weapons they have slung that are incredibly clean. But from

(06:27):
our standpoint, we still have to fight to fight. Well,
this is growing. The governors are all looking for resources,