Maryland and Estonian Civilians Take Up Arms Against Hackers

Maryland has started a volunteer netwarfare squad that the Estonian ambassador likens to her country's groundbreaking civilian cyber reserve, which was assembled after neighboring Russia allegedly shut down the former Soviet state's Internet access in 2007.

The "denial of service attack" paralyzed key industry and government networks for two weeks, and U.S. officials have warned that a similar Internet blackout could happen here soon.

Maryland's 175th Network Warfare Squadron is part of the state's Air National Guard. The squad "provides operational technical, analytical and language support to Air Force and national efforts to identify and mitigate cyber intrusion activities on Department of Defense networks," Maj. Wayde Minami, Maryland Air National Guard public affairs officer, said in an email.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that would position a National Guard "Cyber and Computer Network Incident Response Team" in every state.  Members of the National Guard Association of the United States backed the measure. [...]