On Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz announced he had deployed experts from the Minnesota National Guard to respond to a cyberattack on St. Paul’s digital infrastructure.
While these types of attacks occur frequently across the country and the state, it’s the first time the National Guard’s cybersecurity unit has been called upon to help restore critical services.
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Walz’s office said the magnitude and complexity of the cybersecurity incident exceeded the city’s response capacity.
“We knew this day would come. So now that it’s here, we’re actually able to finally put into action plans that we’ve developed and rehearsed. It’s good to see it finally get executed,” said Lt. Col Brian Morgan of the Minnesota National Guard.
Guard members are working to recover data from critical systems that are impacted and offline by getting rid of the bad actor that may be in the network.
They’re also closing holes in the system that may have allowed the hacker to get in.
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The last step is to restore services when they’re sure the system is secure.
“I think these events are going to continue to happen as a state and as a country rely more on cyber technology and infrastructure of a digital nature. These attacks are going to happen more and more frequently because they’re very lucrative for the bad actors,” Morgan said.
The Minnesota National Guard said it’s hard to predict how long it will take to get everything back online.
Local, state and federal agencies are still investigating the cyberattack. The scope of what was stolen is still unclear.
