The Department of Defense has tasked a cyber protection team to the
THAAD, battery deployed to the Korean Peninsula.
The department considers the threat emanating form North Korea, which includes a rapidly evolving nuclear program but more immediately, their ballistic missile threat to the region, as one of if not the greatest near term threat.
Eschewing the hermit kingdom's nascent nuclear capabilities, their ballistic missile capabilities have the capacity to eviscerate Seoul, the capital of South Korea — a city of over 10 million people.
The Trump administration, following deliberations that spilled over from the previous U.S. administration, deployed the THAAD missile defense battery to the Korean peninsula to guard against missile threats.
As has been highlighted by the nature of connected systems and software reliance today, most all weapon systems are vulnerable to cyber intrusions and attacks.
The CPTs assigned to THAAD have a "full time mission ... to protect that THADD and things like that," Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, deputy chief of staff for the Army's G-3/5/7 said June 1 at an AFCEA hosted event in northern Virginia.
Anderson noted that cyber teams are tasked out just like fires or aviation, no different than any other enabler based on how many teams an organization physically has.
In the cyber domain, he said, the issue becomes who has the teams, who has the capability to deploy them wherever.
Cyber protection teams primary mission is defense of DoD networks and critical weapon systems.
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
