A top US military officer stated at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco that the US is sending more cyber soldiers abroad to assist foreign countries in fighting hackers.
According to US Army Major General William Hartman, the US military’s Cyber National Mission Force has performed 47 such “hunt forward” defensive operations across 20 countries at the invitation of those nations in the last three years.
“The demand for that only increases, and they are not all the same,” Hartman, the commander of the CNMF, said of the missions on the fringes of the conference.
The project is part of a larger push by the United States government to strengthen collaboration with foreign allies in tackling cybercrime, which frequently crosses borders.
For example, some of the largest known ransomware criminal organisations have targeted various countries, including the United States.
“Those are defence teams that we send, and (they) hunt for shared adversaries, find tools, and capabilities,” Hartman explained.
He stated that the CNMF was collaborating closely with the leading cyber body in the United States, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
An Iranian cyber gang penetrated voting systems in a U.S. city that were used to broadcast 2020 election results, they revealed in a separate instance during a joint presentation at the conference.
