‘The Future Of Warfare Is On The Cyber Battlefield’: Andy Ogles Urges Cybersecurity For Vulnerable Areas

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During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) spoke about the need for stronger cybersecurity protections for vulnerable communities.

Transcript

00:00The gentleman yields back. I now recommend this gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Ogles,

00:04for five minutes of questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the witnesses,

00:08I believe strongly in federalism, fiscal responsibility, and the importance of empowering

00:13local communities and not expanding the bureaucracies of, quite frankly, the federal

00:17government. As we assess the state and local cybersecurity grant program, we need to ensure

00:21that our limited federal resources are being used effectively and are actually reaching the

00:26communities most at risk. I say that in the context of being a former county executive,

00:31and Tennessee serves as the CEO of the county. I can attest to the fact that some of these

00:37pass-through grants administered by the states were incredibly important to my county, which was a

00:41rural county. Emergency services, fire, and cyber were all my departments. Again, I get your perspective

00:49on the stable match because, again, as a rural county where we have limited funding mechanisms and,

00:54quite frankly, an ever-growing school system, there's a friction there of how do you fund

01:00these mechanisms, which, as my colleague stated, the future of warfare is on the cyber battlefield.

01:07But that being said, Mr. Huber, you've worked to secure systems against the threat from Volt Typhoon,

01:12a CCP-backed group of hackers who both have sophisticated abilities and specialize in targeting

01:18the most vulnerable points in its target systems. In your testimony, you mentioned their attack on

01:23Littleton Electric Light and Water Department in Massachusetts. In my district and across the

01:28country, we have a diverse range of electric providers, large corporations, rural providers,

01:32as I mentioned. In your experience, how strong is the awareness of cyber threats among smaller,

01:38less-resourced organizations that provide critical infrastructure? And again, I go back to Tennessee,

01:43but probably much like rural Kentucky, where we have a patchwork of these smaller communities where we're

01:48scrapping for resources to figure out how do we, quite frankly, protect not only our infrastructure,

01:54but our citizens. Sir? Yeah, thank you for the question. So, I've had the pleasure of working

02:00with municipalities that the IT person was the IT person and the database administrator and the system

02:05administrator and responsible for security as part-time job. So, as you might imagine, any administrative

02:10burden that might be involved in applying for the grant would be significant for an entity such as that,

02:14a smaller size. But make no mistake, those smaller rural entities, that could be the hydro station that

02:20fuels a larger municipality. That's a national security and an economic impact to the region.

02:26So, as we heard from a gentleman here, education and awareness is key to educating those folks who have

02:34probably dual roles or multi-hat roles for protecting that piece of critical infrastructure for nation-state

02:40attackers. As someone who's been in the trenches, a National Guard member in Title 32 and state active

02:46duty supporting state critical infrastructure components, there's a significant shortage of

02:51resources and knowledge about nation-state level attackers. So, I think it's important to recognize that

02:58this funding is key in raising the bar of foundational cyber controls for all of those entities.

03:03And I want to focus primarily with the other three witnesses on rural communities. And one of my

03:11concerns, again, my background coming from a rural community is that competition that you see between,

03:16say, a Nashville and my community. But yet, from an assessment standpoint, I would argue some of your

03:22rural communities are your most vulnerable points of entry. So, how do we make sure that we're prioritizing,

03:28basically, and take size out of it for a moment, but a needs assessment? Understanding that, again,

03:35whether it's distribution of broadband, whether it's protecting points of entry, etc. Mr. Fuller?

03:41Thank you very much. Let me just say, I really appreciate your comment that these attacks are very

03:46much like war. And this committee just knows very well that we live in a very, very dangerous world,

03:52that we're constantly under attack, including our smallest and most rural communities. So, with the program

03:57that we rolled out, we rolled out tools to all of our communities, including the rural communities.

04:03And for the most rural, who don't even have sufficient IT resources, we're able to make

04:08resources available to help them install those tools. And then we're also able to provide training

04:13for those people. So, we're absolutely committed to getting this program to our small cities and

04:19counties and special districts. Mr. Kramer? Thank you. Again, it's a great question.

04:24I think one of the things that we need to recognize, it's a matter of how quickly we share that

04:30information as well. When a cyber attack happens, what they're trying to do in one place, one community,

04:38is likely happening somewhere else. And again, I think the smaller communities, the rural communities,

04:44where my colleagues have testified that you've got a person who has three different jobs. If they aren't

04:50aware of what to look for, it makes it much more difficult. They often don't find out until it's

04:55too late. So, one of the things we're hoping we can get the federal government to do is recognize

04:59that they collect up a lot of this data about cyber attacks, but they collect it up and hold it.

05:05It would be very useful to us at the local level if, as soon as they knew about a cyber attack,

05:10they shared that information with entities as quickly as they could, so that folks at the local

05:14level could start looking at their own systems and see if someone's trying to get in the same way.

05:18Yes, sir. And I'm out of time, but Mr. Raymond, a final thought?

05:24I would just say that we view cybersecurity as a team sport. We view those that are better

05:29resourced in a good position to help those that aren't. So, we do have municipalities who help each

05:36other, larger ones helping smaller ones, and smaller ones who are relying upon the state to help

05:42deliver services. We do run all of the network services, so it provides a unique ability for

05:49us to provide specialized security services to everyone in our jurisdiction, which is one way to

05:55make the limited dollars we have go a lot further. Sir, thank you to the witness, Mr. Chairman. Apologies

06:00for going over. Of course, that's not a problem.

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