FORT MEADE, Md. — The Pentagon’s National Cyber Task Force has been supporting Ukraine’s digital defense with daily consultations, a collaboration that has unearthed thousands of warning signs about computer networks Ukraine’s computer is likely to be compromised, a top US cyber commander said on Monday.
The United States has a team of nearly 40 people from forces in Ukraine to help the country fortify its defenses before all American troops withdraw from the country in the face of the Russian invasion.
But Major General John Hartman, commander of the force, said Monday that the United States has continued to conduct operations from within the United States to support Ukraine and deter Russian hackers.
The National Cyber Mission was established in 2012, as part of the United States Cyber Command — the nation’s cyber military organization, based at the National Security Agency complex. family in Fort Meade, Md. The 2,000-strong force, organized into 39 teams, is responsible for bolstering allied defenses, stopping Russian hackers, protecting US elections and other operations.
On Monday, the U.S. military elevated the force to a unified command, a symbolic move that could ultimately help it recruit more military specialists and keep members of the military. stay in place longer. The idea is to make the task force the cyber equivalent of the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which oversees America’s elite assassin squads.
“We really wanted to build the JSOC of Cyber Command to tackle the nation’s toughest missions,” said General Hartman.
The war in Ukraine has become the world’s first protracted cyber battle between two sophisticated militaries. Russia has struggled to penetrate Ukraine’s digital defenses or gain any sustainable battlefield benefits from its cyberweapons. While US officials have predicted that Russia will seek to bring down Ukraine’s power grid with a combination of drones, missiles and cyberattacks, only physical attacks cause lasting damage.
For now, Russia appears to have been deterred from direct cyberattacks on the United States or NATO. General Hartman said that while Russian hackers loosely controlled by Moscow could try to attack the United States, the Russian government did not make the “deliberate decision” to attack NATO.
However, the Cyber National Mission force has teams across Europe working to bolster computer network defenses. To date, the force has deployed 38 times to 21 different countries, conducting operations to help strengthen computer networks.
