Bridging the Cybersecurity Gap: Congressman Mark Green on Workforce, Regulation, and Resilience
Season 1 Episode 48 •Show Notes
In this episode of Cyber Focus, host Frank Cilluffo interviews Mark Green, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Congressman Green, a combat veteran and healthcare entrepreneur, discusses key cybersecurity challenges, including workforce shortages, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and economic models that incentivize cybercrime. The conversation highlights the importance of initiatives like the Cyber Pivot Act, designed to address critical workforce gaps, and the need for harmonizing regulatory requirements. Green also explores strategies for protecting critical infrastructure, enhancing state-level cybersecurity, and leveraging public-private partnerships to bolster national resilience.
Main Topics Covered:
- Addressing the cybersecurity workforce gap through the Cyber Pivot Act
- Harmonizing federal regulations to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies
- Strengthening cybersecurity for critical infrastructure at all levels of government
- Tackling economic incentives that enable cybercrime and vulnerabilities
- Advancing public-private partnerships and state-level cybersecurity initiatives
Key Quotes:
“We have a 500,000 person shortage in cybersecurity jobs in this in this country, empty spaces with nobody to put in them.” – Mark Green
“If a company is spending more time complying than they are actually securing themselves, then… government is doing harm.” – Mark Green
“I have a strong belief that we have to as a country own the fact that these businesses can’t protect themselves against nation states. And we have an obligation.” – Mark Green
“At the end of the day, the first to respond and the last to leave in a local incident are still going to be at [the] state level.” – Frank Cilluffo
“We’ve got to figure out as a country how to put pressure on people, to enforce laws, to extradite when someone breaks our laws.” – Mark Green
Guest Bio:
Mark Green is the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, where he spearheads efforts to address cybersecurity, border security, and national resilience. A West Point graduate, Green served as a combat veteran and special operations physician in the Army’s renowned 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers. After his military service, he became a successful entrepreneur in the healthcare sector. Green has brought his leadership skills to Congress, focusing on critical issues like cybersecurity workforce development, regulatory harmonization, and protecting critical infrastructure. He is also the author of We Before Me, a book reflecting his philosophy of putting collective success above individual gain.
Transcript
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Frank Cilluffo: Welcome to CyberFocus from the McCrary Institute, where we explore the people and ideas shaping
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Frank Cilluffo: and defending our digital world. I’m your host, Frank Cilluffo, and have the privilege this
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Frank Cilluffo: week to sit down with Mark Green, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Congressman
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Frank Cilluffo: Green, prior to serving Congress, was a combat veteran, a West Point graduate, a combat
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Frank Cilluffo: doctor, and has served in special operations, tours with the Night Stalkers, Army’s well known
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Frank Cilluffo: 1/60. He’s also been a successful businessman and has been a leader on homeland security
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Frank Cilluffo: issues, border security, and also cybersecurity, where he has recently put forward a bill, the
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Frank Cilluffo: Cyber Pivot act, which will help shrink the gap between the cyber workforce. So really
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Frank Cilluffo: excited for Today’s discussion, Congressman. Mr. Chairman, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for
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Mark Green: having me on. Now, before we jump into the cyber discussion, I understand you have
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Frank Cilluffo: a book coming out. Yeah, I do. It’s called We Before Me. It’s actually for
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Mark Green: sale now, but the official launch will happen soon and so we’re excited about it.
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Mark Green: It’s really about my youth. My father lost his arm when I was in first
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Mark Green: grade and just the things that we learned from that about serving people. Anyway, and
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Mark Green: then I took that into the army and learned how military units put the whole
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Mark Green: above themselves, took that into business. In fact, when I ran my healthcare company, I
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Mark Green: made everybody sign that they would live by we before me culture. That’s awesome. Now
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Mark Green: I’m trying to do that in politics with the Reagan O’Neill Club and other things
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Mark Green: to put the whole being an American back to being number one and just how
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Mark Green: we as a nation are only going to survive if we put our country first,
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Mark Green: above ourselves in our own personal sort of like, you know, Kennedy said, ask not
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Mark Green: what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your
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Mark Green: country. So something along that lines, and I’m excited to get it out there. Well,
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Frank Cilluffo: that’s awesome. And thank you for your service over all these years and your continued
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Frank Cilluffo: service to the country. And buy the book. Yeah, that’d be great. Awesome. Awesome. Well,
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Frank Cilluffo: thank you for joining us today. And I thought we’d start with the discussion around
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Frank Cilluffo: the bill you put forward before Congress, Cyber Pivot act, and its attempts to sort
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Frank Cilluffo: of shrink in the gap between the workforce challenges around cyber. What inspired you to
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Frank Cilluffo: put the legislation forward and draft this? And then how do you think it’ll help?
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Mark Green: Well, if you look at the challenge between the United States and China, one of
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Mark Green: the critical success factors will be talent management. And it’s interesting if you read Confucian
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Mark Green: writings, that’s what it’s about. How they built their governments even as early as 250
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Mark Green: BC. It’s really about talent management. And we have to be in that game of
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Mark Green: talent management if we’re going to win in the challenge. Between us and China, we
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Mark Green: have a 500,000 person shortage in cybersecurity jobs in this country. Empty spaces with nobody
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Mark Green: to put in them. I was having the Worldwide Threats briefing and Director Ray, the
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Mark Green: director of the FBI came in. He said, if I take every single person that
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Mark Green: I have working cyber and put them exclusively on the China desk, we’ll still be
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Mark Green: outnumbered 50 to 1. Think about that. 50 to 1. 50 to 1. It’s staggering.
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Mark Green: It’s staggering. And so obviously this became the number one imperative for us from a
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Mark Green: strategic standpoint of building our cyber defense. So that’s sort of the incentive behind it.
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Mark Green: I think that was your question. But you know, the Pivot Act I think responds
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Mark Green: very well to the needs to fill those jobs. There are programs that are out
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Mark Green: there and they’re good programs. We want to support those. In fact, in some of
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Mark Green: the legislation of the Pivot act, we actually encourage CISA to go and do more
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Mark Green: in those programs. But this one is ROTC like and creates a scholarship program that
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Mark Green: will pay for a young person or really anyone. We titled it Pivot in case
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Mark Green: somebody wants to make a mid career change. Right. So you basically get two years
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Mark Green: of a technical degree paid for. And I like focusing on the technical stuff because
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Mark Green: you know, there are a lot of people and we’ve learned this over the past
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Mark Green: 10 years. We push so many people to go to four year degree programs, the
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Mark Green: graduation rates, all of that stuff. So let’s focus on skills based. And so this
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Mark Green: is a skills based. Let’s give them the tools they need to do the job
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Mark Green: when they hit the ground at their workforce or workplace. And so that’s sort of
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Mark Green: the way it’s structured. We do two years, it’s paid for, you owe the government,
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Mark Green: you have to come work for government. And this is non dod, right? The DOD
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Mark Green: has the ROTC program, but this is for non dodgy and the importance of what
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Mark Green: CISA does for particularly critical infrastructure. And I know you want to talk China later,
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Mark Green: but we’ve got to address this need. And so we think Pivot does that supports
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Mark Green: other programs and the goal is 10,000 graduates a year. Wow. So does it solve
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Mark Green: the problem completely? No. But this is a good first step in addressing the workforce
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Mark Green: shortage in the Country. And if I’m not mistaken, it also allows the service those
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Frank Cilluffo: two years they owe. The government can also include state, local, tribal, territorial. Absolutely, 100%.
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Frank Cilluffo: Which is where I think if you look at where our greatest vulnerabilities are. When
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Frank Cilluffo: you think about small states, big states, they face the same threat that the Feds
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Frank Cilluffo: do, and they don’t necessarily have the. And everyone’s connected. Right. So you find. They
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Mark Green: find they’re looking for the weak point. Right. So where we can help the state
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Mark Green: and local governments in this particular area, this will be huge. So what do you
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Frank Cilluffo: think likelihood of passage of the bill? Well, I think what we’ve done is. And
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Mark Green: we took the time to do this. Right, Right. Sometimes you rush a bill and
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Mark Green: now we’ve got a short. We’re on short final for the end of this session.
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Mark Green: So I think there’s a chance we can get it through the House, maybe. Maybe
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Mark Green: the Senate. But it’s small, to be completely honest. But here we have the template.
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Mark Green: We have actually not a template. We have a finished product to go live right
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Mark Green: when the next Congress starts. There’s no change in the House. There’s a great change
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Mark Green: in the Senate. So I think we can get it done. Awesome. And if nothing
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Frank Cilluffo: else, it puts the marker in the. Not the sand, maybe the silicon in this
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Frank Cilluffo: respect. And it just makes a whole lot of sense. And no, it’s a good
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Mark Green: idea. And we need more of these ideas. Along with sort of upskilling veterans, there
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Frank Cilluffo: seem to be some buttons we haven’t pushed. This in combination with others, I think
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Frank Cilluffo: can get us closer to the goal. I think so. Absolutely. So in terms of.
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Frank Cilluffo: In addition to sort of the Pivot act, what other priorities do you see in
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Frank Cilluffo: the 119 around cyber? I think one of the greatest challenges we have has been
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Mark Green: matched with an incredible opportunity. Greatest challenge, wide bureaucracy, not talking and communicating with one
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Mark Green: another, creating these. You know, they’re operating in silos. Right. So they’re creating regulations that
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Mark Green: oftentimes even go so far as to contradict one another. We got to harmonize. Right.
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Mark Green: What government is requiring of the private sector. Because if a company is spending more
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Mark Green: time complying than they are actually securing themselves, then we’re doing. Government is doing harm.
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Mark Green: Would not be the first time that’s happened. So what we’ve got to do is
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Mark Green: go in here and I’ll tell you, I’ve been really impressed. I was impressed with
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Mark Green: my team putting the Pivot act together. Right. What they have. You do have a
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Frank Cilluffo: great team. I have a Great team. They’re leaning forward on this. You know, I
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Mark Green: cast out these things. I want, you know, my ideas and. Doggone, you got to
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Frank Cilluffo: make sense of it all. Yeah, they bring it back. And so I’ve seen sort
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Mark Green: of the roadmap going forward for the harmonization stuff and I’m really excited about that.
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Mark Green: I think again, we can make a substantive difference so that the problem is the
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Mark Green: lack of harmonization and the contradiction. The opportunity is the Chevron deference ruling from the
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Mark Green: Supreme Court. Boom. Right? That’s the boom. And I actually have a bill that is
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Mark Green: a rolling repeal of every piece of bureaucracy regulation that violates Chevron or that the
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Mark Green: ruling would cover. That’s sort of more global, more strategic and focused on. This is
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Mark Green: the Harmonization Act. And we are going to be working with the private sector, they’re
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Mark Green: going to be critical on this, with the bureaucracy, working with the agencies, and we’re
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Mark Green: going to identify those areas. In the go forward, something we can do immediately is
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Mark Green: tell OMB in a simple bill, you will not pass a new regulation or put
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Mark Green: a new regulation out there that is either duplicative or contradictory. And we make OMB
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Mark Green: sort of the funnel that everything has to go through. So in the go forward,
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Mark Green: nothing can be contradictory or duplicative. And then we got to go back and then
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Mark Green: it’s going to be every single piece. And that’s not going to be easy, but
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Mark Green: it’s essential. And it seems like that has application far beyond just cyber. But cyber
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Frank Cilluffo: transcends everything. Right now for me, I’ve got two critical borders, right? The southwest border
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Mark Green: and the cyber border. And I get that that argument isn’t calling it a cyber
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Mark Green: border is not perfect because a lot of times stuff is coming from within. But
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Mark Green: when you think of protecting systems, protecting organizations, infrastructure, then I like to think of
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Mark Green: it as a border and. I think that’s valuable. I mean, when we think of
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Frank Cilluffo: cyber, it. It is its own domain, but it transcends airland, sea space. When you
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Frank Cilluffo: think space as well, by the way, it transcends airland, cyber. So undersea and some
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Frank Cilluffo: things that we don’t always think about in terms of cyber and protecting our critical
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Frank Cilluffo: infrast structure is part of our border, but we have to push it out, don’t
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Frank Cilluffo: we? We do, yeah, absolutely. And, and ultimately we’re never going to simply firewall or
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Frank Cilluffo: defend our way out of this problem. We need to impose cost and consequence and
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Frank Cilluffo: bad behavior. So you, you bring up really two. I’m already there, so I’m sorry,
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Frank Cilluffo: you. Bring up important points. But, yeah, I. Look, we need redundancy. That’s. That’s an
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Mark Green: issue. Right. You look at CrowdStrike and what it taught us, the cost of that
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Mark Green: 5 billion going back to the cost of the Pivot Act. I mean, just CrowdStrike
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Mark Green: cost us $5 billion. So I think we probably could be smart to afford it.
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Mark Green: Right. But anyway, I digress. We have got to create redundancy in our systems. So,
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Mark Green: you know, we’re on from harmonization and synchronization now to that. The other issue is
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Mark Green: the economic models that support threat actors. Okay. And some of those are intrinsic to
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Mark Green: ourselves, and some of them are extrinsic. The intrinsic ones are where we allow businesses
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Mark Green: to go put a product out there that has vulnerabilities in it. And I get
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Mark Green: the. I ran a healthcare company. I get first to market. We were hoping to
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Mark Green: be the first to market when I ran my healthcare company with a system where
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Mark Green: you could actually log into the ER from home and do a telemedicine interview from
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Mark Green: home, and we were gonna, you know, brand it and do all that. So I
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Mark Green: get the concept. It’s out there now that I’ve sold the company. But anyway, the
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Mark Green: point is, is if you can be first to market, that’s a competitive advantage. Absolutely.
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Mark Green: Well, if you rush a product to market, to be the first to market, and
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Mark Green: it’s got vulnerabilities, you could put the whole system at risk. So we’ve got to
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Mark Green: figure this one out. And reversing that economic model, there are a lot of different
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Mark Green: courses of action, but it’s not palatable to anyone. But that’s a challenge. Just because
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Mark Green: it’s hard doesn’t mean we run from it. Exactly. Okay. Never quit. Never quit. So
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Mark Green: you got two different pieces to this, and we have to address both of them.
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Frank Cilluffo: And the other side of that economic model is, I would argue for a while,
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Frank Cilluffo: we’ve been blaming the victim. An entity gets hacked, and you can’t expect even the
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Frank Cilluffo: biggest companies to defend themselves against nations. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, you name the
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Frank Cilluffo: bad actors. So we’ve got to sort of even that playing field as much as
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Frank Cilluffo: we can as well. Correct on that. Yeah. And that starts with the compulsory compliance
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Mark Green: stuff that we give these guys. Right. So that’s sort of the step one to
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Mark Green: this. But step two is a real partnership. Maybe that begins with the harmonization stuff,
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Mark Green: but then we can move that forward to actual protecting first critical infrastructure and then
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Mark Green: our economy and people. I mean, you can hack, you can hack, pacemakers so this
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Mark Green: ultimately has the threat to American lives. Individuals. Individuals, too. So I have
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Mark Green: a strong belief that we have to, as a country, own the fact that these
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Mark Green: businesses can’t protect themselves against nation states. And we have an obligation, as I spent
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Mark Green: 24 years in the army defending the country. Right. So I see that as something
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Mark Green: that we have to do. I think you’re spot on. And I also think you’re
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Frank Cilluffo: spot on in terms of we can’t just have a compliance. We need to raise
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Frank Cilluffo: the bar. There’s no question about it. We can’t get products out there that are
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Frank Cilluffo: built on quicksand because at the end. Exactly. Right. That’s what we are. So some
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Mark Green: accountability there, you know, and we’ve brought. We’ve done it. We brought. We don’t want
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Frank Cilluffo: to check the box either. Right. You don’t want someone just to figure out how
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Frank Cilluffo: to game the system, check the box, game over. Because that’ll create. That’ll create the
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Mark Green: problems that we’ve had. You know, we. We brought Microsoft and CrowdStrike both before our
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Mark Green: committee. We did that because accountability has to happen. You know, you brought up Chevron
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Frank Cilluffo: deference. I. And again, I think it’s unknown exactly what the implications are here, but
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Frank Cilluffo: I do think it puts a little more onus on this end of Pennsylvania Avenue
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Frank Cilluffo: Congress to be a little more prescriptive in legislation. Would you agree with that? Well,
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Mark Green: we have to be very careful about that. Right. But you’re right, honestly, when what
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Mark Green: happened to create the problem in the first place was Congress and I don’t want
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Mark Green: to say being lazy. Let’s assume for a second that they did it with good
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Mark Green: motives. Those guys know their business a little more than we do. Let’s allow them
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Mark Green: to write all the regulations pertaining to X and Y. Okay, so let’s assume for
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Mark Green: a second that there were good intentions in this. Well, what happened is the bureaucracy
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Mark Green: grew so big and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. So.
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Mark Green: And then it got onerous and violated the rights of Americans and the rights of
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Mark Green: states. And that’s where Chevron, all of that. That got to. Right? Yep. And so
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Mark Green: the Supreme Court said, heck, no, that’s against the Constitution of the United States Congress.
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Mark Green: You have to do this work. And honestly, we’re going to have to look at.
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Mark Green: If we’re now writing legislation that has to have all of these specifics in it,
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Mark Green: we may have to increase our staffs, we may have to hire different experts. We
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Mark Green: may have to. That’s all something that as a global entity, Congress now has to
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Mark Green: grapple with. I think it’s inevitable. I think it has to be inevitable. No, I
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Mark Green: agree, but that’s the challenge we’re looking at. And it’s going to take someone championing
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Mark Green: that, what it looks like going forward. I’m glad you brought that up, because that
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Frank Cilluffo: is where I end up. No matter how you square that circle. No, that’s right.
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Frank Cilluffo: It has to go in that direction. And I also think the courts themselves, you’ve
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Frank Cilluffo: got a number of judges that don’t necessarily have a whole lot of cyber skill
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Frank Cilluffo: and background. And I think the courts, we’re going to have to see in the
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Frank Cilluffo: judiciary side, because we don’t want arbitrary rulings to be the de facto standard in
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Frank Cilluffo: every case and form. Right. That’s the flip side of all that. Sure, sure. We
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Mark Green: can’t write laws that violate the Constitution either. Yep, absolutely. So we need to make
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Mark Green: sure that we’re thorough and that we have the right perspective when we do it.
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Frank Cilluffo: So, private sector, I’m a little bit of a broken record on this. I feel
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Frank Cilluffo: like enough talk around information sharing. More needs to be done there. But what we’re
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Frank Cilluffo: talking about is potentially the need for operational collaboration. You would know better than anyone,
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Frank Cilluffo: you trust those you’re in the foxhole with, and I feel like more can be
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Frank Cilluffo: done there. What are your thoughts around that? Constitutionally, obviously, you know, I mean, I.
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Mark Green: Think that’s the direction we’re heading. And I mentioned starting with harmonization. Trust. Trust is
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Frank Cilluffo: key, right? No, absolutely. We don’t want to create laws. And this is the way
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Mark Green: I’ve always done it. I was a state senator before, and I’m a congressman now,
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Mark Green: and now a chairman. I love bringing in the stakeholders and having them look at
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Mark Green: a bill. And you can’t imagine the number of eyes that we had in the
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Mark Green: private sector, in government. Take a look at this bill, as it should be. And
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Mark Green: my people went back and forth and they gave us great ideas and our staff
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Mark Green: took great ideas to them. This was a very collaborative effort to create legislation that
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Mark Green: works for everybody or as much as possible. And so if we just adopt as
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Mark Green: Congress that process going forward, I can’t imagine. I mean, I’d love to send a
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Mark Green: survey. Honestly, not a bad idea. My staff’s probably hearing me say this. You probably
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Mark Green: ought to send a survey out and say, how did it work, working with us
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Mark Green: to put this piece of legislation together? Did you feel like you had input? Did
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Mark Green: you, you know, because a survey monkey or something, you know, and just get some
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Mark Green: feedback. But I would submit to you, I bet you a 1/60 mug that they
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Mark Green: will respond. That team was fantastic and sought our input and we worked together to
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Mark Green: create a great bill. You know, you just came up with another idea that I
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Frank Cilluffo: think efficiency in Congress. But that’s a good. But that is a good concept. Imagine
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Frank Cilluffo: if all big pieces of legislation had a survey given the various stakeholders. That would
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Frank Cilluffo: lead to some transparency and efficiency, Right? Absolutely. We also need a scorecard on the
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Mark Green: bureaucracy, though. Yeah, no kidding. Too. But that’s the oversight. Absolutely. Yeah. A law is
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Frank Cilluffo: as good as it’s enforced and enacted upon. Spot on with that. What do you
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Frank Cilluffo: think? Cyber, and we know it’s a broad set of issues. What does it look
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Frank Cilluffo: like in a new Trump administration? Well, I think President Trump is keen to understand
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Mark Green: the threat. Right. He gets what China is his. And people. I think a lot
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Mark Green: of people don’t understand how to speak Trump. They need to go read the art
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Mark Green: of the deal. The 25% tariff on Mexico. Right. And people go, oh, my gosh.
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Mark Green: Next thing you know, Mexico’s got military on the Guatemalan border and military on the
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Mark Green: US border and suddenly it’s fixed. You know, so if you understand that with the
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Mark Green: tariffs he’s talking about with China, you know, you got the G20 down in Brazil
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Mark Green: right now, they’re freaking out about, you know, the tariffs and the impact on inflation.
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Mark Green: And listen, he’s setting the discussion right. And when it comes to China, it’s the
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Mark Green: same way. Right. So we’re. We’re. I think he will be very firm when it
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Mark Green: comes to cyber stuff. I’ll be very interested to see who Governor Nunn picks to
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Mark Green: be, you know, head of cisa. That. That’s a conversation I hope I can. And
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Mark Green: they’ve already reached out to me, by the way, over the weekend about overall big
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Mark Green: ideas and people. So I think it’s. I think it’s going to be great. I
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Mark Green: know he gets the problem and the threat and that’s step one. And when we
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Frank Cilluffo: think about cyber, and I come from a national security background, so I’ve always looked
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Frank Cilluffo: at it through that lens. But when you look at it today, it’s inextricably interwoven
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Frank Cilluffo: with our economic security. Right. I mean, it literally touches it all. Five billion from
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Mark Green: CrowdStrike. Yeah. And that’s one. That’s one hit. That’s a. Solar Winds. Solar Winds was
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Mark Green: more than that. Exactly. And that didn’t. The CrowdStrike wasn’t hostile intent. That’s right. That
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Mark Green: was just exactly. Yeah, that’s a butterfinger. So, but, but it is what it is.
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Frank Cilluffo: So this sort of brings us to you and Congress and Representative Laura Lee put
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Frank Cilluffo: forward some, I think, important legislation around all the various typhoons, whether it’s vault salt,
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Frank Cilluffo: you name it. But I’d be curious what your thoughts are around that. Well, it’s
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Mark Green: a first step, right. It’s a task force to look into this kind of stuff.
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Mark Green: So it’s, but it’s, it’s a step that has to be taken. I mean, you
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Mark Green: know, you crawl, walk, run. So. And Laura Lee has taken, she’s a fantastic member,
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Mark Green: former Secretary of State for Florida, I think, the third largest state in our country.
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Mark Green: She gets it. She gets cyber really well. And so, yeah, this was her initiative
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Mark Green: and I came in to support her. She’s done a great job with it. And
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Mark Green: again, it’s step one, it’s a task force to dig into it, but we’ve got
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Mark Green: to do that. China Select Committee, I don’t know, does that stay? Are we going
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Frank Cilluffo: to see that in the 119? I think, I think so, but I haven’t. You
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Mark Green: know, it’s funny you ask. I haven’t had that conversation. Yeah, me neither. I didn’t
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Frank Cilluffo: even think about it until right now. I think it has had significant impact raising
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Frank Cilluffo: awareness to the American people because inside the community it can get a little confusing.
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Frank Cilluffo: But when the average citizen can relate to the consequences, I think it moves the
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Frank Cilluffo: ball. Maybe not immediately, you. Well, it can immediately. I mean, and I agree. And
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Mark Green: I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that we have an
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Mark Green: obligation with our oversight to educate. Right. And that’s educate the populace, that’s educate each
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Mark Green: other. And so our oversight has a purpose, and that is one of those is
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Mark Green: education. And if you want to move the needle, you can move it quickly. For
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Mark Green: example, we did President Biden had a just administrative decision to do away with all
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Mark Green: hunting safety programs in high schools. And so we got out there, we started educating
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Mark Green: the American people on it, dropped a bill on it, passed the bill with only
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Mark Green: one no vote in the House and unanimously in the Senate, clearly a veto override
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Mark Green: majority. And he signed it into law. And I did that bill now. So if
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Mark Green: you educate enough Americans, they’ll call their congressman and it’ll result in action. Right. So
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Mark Green: that education piece is really important. Well said. I’m gonna put you on the spot.
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Frank Cilluffo: We recently came out with a pretty big report looking at priorities for the incoming
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Frank Cilluffo: administration. We released it before the election to ensure that it was nonpartisan, we had
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Frank Cilluffo: the cyber advisors from the last five presidents, so. Oh, cool. Clearly nonpartisan. One of
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Frank Cilluffo: the things. And I’ve been advocating this for this for a while, but what do
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Frank Cilluffo: you think about designating state sponsors of cybercrime the way we do for terrorism? That
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Frank Cilluffo: unleashes tools in the community that can be brought to bear and it just seems
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Frank Cilluffo: to me like one of those common sense. If I thought about it for, for
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Frank Cilluffo: a while, it sort of makes sense. But I don’t want to put words in
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Frank Cilluffo: your mouth. No, I, I like the idea. The problem is that some of those
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Mark Green: designations we’d have to create what it means and what authorities it gives. Because, for
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Mark Green: example, we looked at making the cartels terrorist organizations and again it wound up because
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Mark Green: of the way they’re sort of interwoven into particularly Latin America. Going that far
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Mark Green: to name them terrorists would not work legally from a legal standpoint. Right. So I
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Mark Green: know there are several initiatives out there to try to create this separate sort of
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Mark Green: RICO based entity that then they could direct more government resources against the cartels. Right.
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Mark Green: So I look at it the pretty much the same way. It’s a great idea.
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Mark Green: But I got to get into the weeds on this one legally. And with the
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Frank Cilluffo: cartels, though, they were designated transnational criminal organization, which do unleash some of the authorities.
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Mark Green: That’s correct. Intelligence authorities. That’s exactly. And that’s where I’m really going. Cooperative from Title
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Mark Green: 10 and Title. I mean, so Title 1050 is where it’s all at 100%. Yeah.
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Frank Cilluffo: And 32, once we start looking at some of the domestic sorts of issues. Yeah.
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Mark Green: One of my initiatives is, and I’m trying to convince, and this is outside of
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Mark Green: my own committee because it’s in the ndaa, but I want a Cyber National Guard
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Mark Green: unit in every state. And that way the governors can, you know, bring them on
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Mark Green: state level. State level. Activate them at the state level in case the state gets
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Mark Green: hit. So that’s one of the initiatives that we’re trying. We’ve got amendments to the
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Mark Green: NDAA on that. I hope that passes because we work very closely at Auburn with
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Frank Cilluffo: the Alabama National Guard. National Guard, they’re great. And whether it’s in Title 10 authority
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Frank Cilluffo: or Title 32, is that. Because at the end of the day, the first to
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Frank Cilluffo: respond, the last to leave in a local incident are still going to be at
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Frank Cilluffo: that state level. That’s exactly right. We saw that with Helena and I. Feel like
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Frank Cilluffo: we’ve seen this movie quite a bit and we still haven’t figured that one out.
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Frank Cilluffo: What other priorities from a critical infrastructure standpoint do you see from a security resilience
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Frank Cilluffo: that, that you’re focused on? Well, we’ve covered workforce, we’ve covered the harmonization effort, which
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Mark Green: is essential. And we’ve got the economic models. You know, we, we touched on one
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Mark Green: of those economic models, the first to market stuff. There’s an economic model that we
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Mark Green: haven’t talked about and that is how do we affect the incentive of the kid
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Mark Green: in Russia with a $3,000 laptop getting a $5 million ransomware payoff. Right. So that’s
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Mark Green: an imbalance and there are multiple different ways. You mentioned the state sponsors of but
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Mark Green: oftentimes it’s just a criminal thug who happens to live inside a country that won’t
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Mark Green: extradite to the United States. Now we implemented this ambassadorship at the State Department to
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Mark Green: deal with these but it hasn’t been effective. We’ve got to figure out as a
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Mark Green: country how to put pressure on people to enforce laws to extradite when someone breaks
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Mark Green: our laws. And this one I don’t have all the answers to. But it’s, it’s
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Mark Green: when we got to put our heads around and get some smart people working on.
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Mark Green: Because that’s not, it’s not just nation states, it’s criminal organizations that make a lot
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Mark Green: of money hammering small hospital systems in this country that risk American lives. Now you’re
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Frank Cilluffo: spot on there. And, and the role of proxies, who’s the puppet, who’s the master
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Frank Cilluffo: is not always easy to discern. Very good point. And when they call on them,
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Frank Cilluffo: they’re suddenly there for Mother Russia or whoever else else right to, to do their
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Frank Cilluffo: bidding. And, and that does complicate all this. That’s why I like the state sponsorship
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Frank Cilluffo: because that gets through the murkiness there. Sure. In terms of direct attacks and sponsored.
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Frank Cilluffo: But any, any questions I didn’t ask that I should have. I think the most
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Mark Green: important question is is army going to beat Navy here in a week? Army’s looking
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Mark Green: good days and so hopefully, hopefully that that will happen and the world will be
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Mark Green: right. Well, I hope army makes the playoffs. Chairman Green, thank you for your leadership.
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Frank Cilluffo: Thank you for spending time with us today and keep fighting. Thanks for having. Thank
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Frank Cilluffo: you. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Cyberfocus. If you liked what
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Frank Cilluffo: you heard, please consider subscribing your ratings and reviews. Help us reach more listeners. Drop
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Frank Cilluffo: us a line if you have any ideas in terms of topics, themes, or individuals
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Frank Cilluffo: you’d like for us to to host. Until next time, stay safe, stay informed, and
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Frank Cilluffo: stay curious.
