U.S. deploys more cyber forces abroad to help fight hackers

U.S. deploys more cyber forces abroad to help fight hackers

The United States is sending extra of its cyber forces overseas to assist overseas governments struggle hackers, a high U.S. navy official mentioned on the RSA cybersecurity convention in San Francisco.

In the final three years, the U.S. navy’s Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) has carried out 47 such “hunt forward” defensive operations throughout 20 nations on the invitation of these nations, U.S. Army Major General William Hartman mentioned on Monday.

“The demand for that only increases, and they are not all the same,” Hartman, CNMF’s commander, mentioned of the missions, talking on the sidelines of the convention.

The initiative displays a broader push by the U.S. authorities to enhance collaboration with overseas allies on combating cyber crimes, which frequently cross borders. Some of the biggest recognized ransomware legal gangs, for example, have focused a number of nations, together with the United States.

Hartman mentioned CNMF had dispatched 43 specialists to Ukraine, which has been battling Russian cyber onslaughts amid the struggle there, which Russia calls a “special operation”.

“Those are defense teams we send, and (they) hunt for shared adversaries, find tools and capabilities,” Hartman mentioned.

He mentioned the CNMF was working carefully with the highest U.S. cyber physique, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Both companies had collaborated on thwarting potential assaults in opposition to three U.S. federal companies by overseas adversaries, mentioned Eric Goldstein, CISA’s government assistant director.

“We notified the agencies, gave them guidance, and kicked off incident response. Simultaneously, we gathered all the information on the adversary infrastructure and shared it with CNMF,” he mentioned. Goldstein and Hartman declined to supply additional particulars on the incident.

A separate incident they disclosed throughout a joint presentation on the convention concerned an Iranian hacking group that had breached voting programs in a U.S. metropolis that have been used to report the 2020 election outcomes.

The CNMF feared the hackers might make the system’s web site “look like the vote had been tampered with,” however the company revoked entry, Hartman mentioned.

“There was no impact to any election infrastructure,” Goldstein added.

“We want to make this a model – find the technical evidence to hand over to CNMF,” he mentioned, including that securing the 2024 U.S. presidential election is a “top priority”.

Source: www.anews.com.tr