The U.S. Coast Guard held a ceremony at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 18 to mark the establishment of Coast Guard Reserve Unit U.S. Cyber Command and 1941 Cyber Protection Team, the service branch’s first two cyber-focused reserve commands. The Coast Guard said Thursday that the two new organizations will work to enhance its network cybersecurity as well as that of the Marine Transportation System, a.k.a. MTS, and integrate into joint cyber operations in line with CYBERCOM.
Coast Guard Reserve Unit U.S. Cyber Command
CGRU USCYBER will operate primarily out of Fort Meade to assist in threat assessment and the protection of systems and networks in addition to other CYBERCOM joint directorates. The unit will be under the command of Capt. Ronzelle Green, who most recently served as reserve chief of staff and senior reserve officer of Coast Guard Atlantic Area.
The unit will have 15 billets to start.
1941 Cyber Protection Team
1941 CPT will initially work to augment and support the Coast Guard’s active-duty cyber protection teams — namely 1790, 2013 and 2003 CPTs — in securing the MTS via threat hunting, incident response and assessments. The team will be under the command of Lt. Cmdr. Nathaniel Toll, who, as a member of Coast Guard Cyber, was in charge of the USCG enterprise cybersecurity operations center. He had also led the establishment of 1790 CPT and 2013 CPT, and after transitioning to reserve duty, helped establish 1941 CPT.
The team will have 39 billets.
Creating Cohesive Cyber Units
Commenting on the newly established units, Lt. Cmdr. Theodore Borny of the Office of Cyberspace Forces said, “Coast Guard Cyber is already benefitting from its reserve members. Formalizing reserves with cyber talent into cohesive units will give us the ability to channel a skillset that is very hard to acquire and retain.”
Hear from various speakers to learn more about the various security concerns facing the U.S. and what’s being done to address them at the Potomac Officers Club’s Annual Homeland Security Summit, which will take place on Nov. 13.
