Bloomberg: States aim to emulate Ohio’s approach to cybersecurity

During the training exercise at the 1819 Innovation Hub, 19 members of the Ohio Cyber Reserve “hunted for digital breadcrumbs left by a fictional disgruntled employee who defaced state websites, tracked down theoretical thieves who mined a municipal online data trove, and battled malware that a foreign country had secreted onto county computer networks.”

Richard Harknett, a professor of political science and co-director of the Ohio Cyber Range Institute at UC, said the training event was wildly successful.

States including California, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Maryland are creating civilian cyber volunteer response teams like Ohio. Virginia, Indiana Colorado, Montana, Washington and West Virginia also have expressed interest in establishing teams.

“The phone’s been ringing off the hook,” said Maj. Gen. John C. Harris Jr., Ohio adjutant general. “There’s a lot of interest in standing up this kind of cyber reserve.”

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Featured image at top: Members of the Ohio Cyber Reserve, a volunteer force under the command of the state’s adjutant general, take part in a training exercise at the University of Cincinnati's 1819 Innovation Hub. Photos by Joseph Fuqua