Chris Riling says he “could never join the military.” He’s 37, has cerebral palsy, and wouldn’t have managed basic training, he says. Yet he recently swore an oath to protect the country and obey his commanding officers. At any moment, Ohio’s governor can call him up for active duty reporting to the state’s National Guard. And if he missteps, he can be tried under the Ohio Code of Military Justice. That’s because Riling, a systems architect at Cisco Systems Inc., is a volunteer for a novel kind of civilian reserve—a group of mostly private-sector tech professionals tasked with combating cyberattacks in the state. Right now, in the runup to the midterms, the group’s focus is election integrity: Voting-related hacking attempts could have disastrous implications for American democracy if successful, and cash-strapped state and local governments are often ill-equipped to face down new technological threats. Already, other states are seeking to copy Ohio’s model as they race to catch up with the threat of ransomware hacks, election interference, and other punishing cyberattacks, both foreign and domestic. Created just before the pandemic, the Ohio Cyber Reserve has assembled 80 members who can be called up under the command of Major General John Harris of the National Guard. They work mostly in cybersecurity by day and moonlight as crime-fighting reservists on weekends and Tuesday evenings from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The program already has state funding to expand to 200 people and could ultimately grow to 500, organizers say. Most members take leave from work to fulfill their reserve duties and receive travel expenses for training.
Full Article: Ohio Raises a Volunteer Army to Fight Election Hacking – Bloomberg
