Nearly half of the National Guard personnel who have been placed on state active duty for the election will be advising local officials on how to deal with cyber threats, National Guard officials said.
A total of 15 states have activated National Guardsmen for the election Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin, the National Guard Bureau said in a statement to Task & Purpose.
Those states have activated a total of 252 Guardsmen, of which roughly 110 are dedicated to cybersecurity, according to the National Guard Bureau.
Each of the 54 U.S. states and territories has its own laws and agreements about how the National Guard can provide election support, said Army Col. Jeff Fleming, director of information management for the Illinois National Guard.
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Fleming is familiar with how the National Guard as a whole provides cybersecurity for states during elections because, for the past three years, he has been the officer-in-charge for Cyber Shield exercises, the Defense Department’s largest unclassified cyber exercise, which is hosted by the National Guard.
Once the National Guardsmen are in their state status and under the command of their respective governors, they will do what their lead state agency requests them to do, Fleming told Task & Purpose.
For the most part, National Guardsmen will not have access to state elections systems, so they advise state officials “over the shoulder,” Fleming said.
“Some states will have their folks in advance work with their boards of elections, work with their secretaries of state in kind of an advisory capacity and help them with different policies, advising on the threats, advising on potential mitigation strategies, reviewing cybersecurity or other [information technology] policies for certain involved agencies,” Fleming said. “Some of those different agencies may request security assessments or penetration tests from their Guard units.”
Those federal agencies may also request that National Guardsmen help implement any of the recommended fixes as a result of those tests, Fleming said.
States also have National Guardsmen in their board of elections offices and operations centers as advisors and to communicate with other states and federal agencies about potential threats, he said.
“Other states, I know, may have folks on standby, working alongside their state law enforcement agencies,” Fleming said. “Should there be an actual cyber incident, they would go in support of law enforcement to do investigation and analysis of an incident that may come in, and then do whatever follow-up that is alongside that law enforcement agency.”
Intelligence community officials believe that Russia, Iran, and China are trying to spread disinformation during this election cycle. U.S. officials have blamed Russia for one fake video that purportedly showed mail-in ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania being destroyed.
For the most part, federal agencies are tasked with dealing with those types of treats, but the National Guard can advise senior officials if they see misinformation and disinformation, such as deepfake videos, Fleming said. In fact, the latest Cyber Shield exercise involved identifying how to determine if a video is true or fake.
“This an extremely emotionally charged time,” Fleming said, “And so if a video seems just a little bit wonky, before you get emotionally charged by it or decide to splash it across social media or make a reaction to it, do double-validate and confirm, even if it was your bestest friend in the world sharing it.”