169th Cyber Protection Team – Highly Capable, Always Ready

^{Author: U.S. Air National Guard Senior Airman Sarah M. McClanahan}

^{Photos by: U.S. Air National Guard Senior Airman Sarah M. McClanahan & U.S. Army Spc. William Phelps}

BALTIMORE (Nov. 6, 2019) — Just a few miles beyond the bustling cyber hub surrounding Fort Meade, Maryland, is the Laurel Readiness Center and home to the Maryland National Guard’s 169th Cyber Protection Team. This team of cyber professionals have the mission to defend Department of Defense information networks and assist in cyber defense outside of the DOD when called. What makes the 169th CPT stand out is the fact that they are the only full-time fully-operational cyber protection team in the Army National Guard.

Tracing their origins back to 2013, the 169th CPT has since grown from an informal handful of cyber professionals to a full-time National Guard cyber protection team when they were activated as a unit in 2017.

“[The CPT] was a notional idea during that time,” explains U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Carlos Salas, 169th CPT cyber planner. “We were a team of people put together on temporary orders. They called us a CPT, but we didn’t have a funding or anything. We just belonged to the National Guard Bureau. That was it.”

With a trained team of 38 members in an Active Guard Reserve full-time paid status, the 169th CPT is able to provide capabilities such as incident response, vulnerability assessments, network and host-based analysis, threat emulation, and more. With a recall time of only four hours, the 169th CPT can respond and assist quickly and effectively.

“Our capabilities are to deploy at a moment’s notice to conduct a [cyber threat] hunt, clear, and defend mission or to do a cyber readiness inspection,” explains U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Keith Roberson, 169th CPT deputy discovery encounter infiltration lead. “A couple of our cyber support and readiness squads are already providing support to the [G6-signal operations] and their mission.”

When they are not providing assistance on any number of missions, the members of the 169th CPT are continuously seeking ways to further their education and credentialing. 

Within the 169th CPT are many well-trained experienced people from diverse backgrounds. Several come from National Guard elements of other states or the civilian sector.

All together the 169th CPT has 134 industry certifications amongst all its members, totaling roughly $1.2 million worth of training. Generally, any given organization will only have a couple certified personnel in something like CISSP while the 169th CPT has 16 members certified on one team.

While the 169th CPT is a highly capable cyber element with extensive credentials, a major obstacle in performing those capabilities is being authorized to use them. 

“We have a lot of capabilities with a team of people who have been doing this for 20+ years,” explains Salas. “We have that level of experience. We want to use it and be the ones called up when needed.”

Salas explains that currently, there are no laws in place granting the 169th CPT the authority to respond to immediate cyber threats. Ideally, he hopes that when an event occurs generating a certain level of catastrophic threat to cyber networks or protected information, the Maryland National Guard and the 169th CPT would be allocated the authority to respond to the situation.

In the meantime, the 169th CPT maintains mission readiness at all times with continued educational opportunities for training and credentialing. Additionally, they have participated in numerous national cyber exercises such as Cyber Shield, Cyber Flag, Cyber Yankee, and others.

“Sending members to national exercises provides the opportunity for them to hone their craft,” explains Roberson. “It gives people who don’t have as much experience doing the job the chance to get a bit more hands-on.”

National exercises and continuous education allow the 169th CPT to provide fully qualified Soldiers for missions in support of the Maryland National Guard, DoD, and beyond.

“We are all very dedicated in what we do,” said Salas. “We are all itching to get out there and prove ourselves and show what we can do.”