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Committee member urges wider National Guard cyber tabletop drills as Florida highlights $30 million cyber center
Summary
A committee member representing Arkansas urged expanding National Guard cyber training to include tabletop exercises for civilian targets; a Florida official described Cyber Florida's online tabletop tool and said the state has committed $30 million to a university cyber center.
A committee member at a House Committee on Financial Services hearing urged expanding National Guard cyber training to include tabletop exercises that simulate attacks on civilian sites, saying current drills overemphasize water systems.
The committee member described Cyber Shield at Camp Robinson in Little Rock as drawing about "1,100 people, 44 states, 23 countries" and said the exercises should be broadened beyond infrastructure such as water systems to civilian targets like retail locations and telecommunications hubs. "Everything we're practicing, water system, water system, water system," the committee member said, adding: "No better way than to take down all Walmart stores." He argued tabletop exercises used for other civil-defense scenarios should be applied to cyber threats as well.
An official identified as representing Cyber Florida told the panel that the state program offers an electronic tabletop platform, hosted at a state university, that organizations can use to pressure-test cyber defenses. The official said feedback from businesses and infrastructure partners has been "extremely positive," and that the state has provided $30,000,000 to establish a university-focused cyber center for research and training.
The committee member asked whether states use civilian cyber workforces organized under National Guard structures and cited North Carolina's practice of running tabletop exercises with private-sector partners such as utilities and banks. The Florida official said Florida has invested in both tools and institutional capacity and emphasized training for both mindset and technical skill sets needed for field defense.
The committee member proposed integrating top cyber personnel from the Air National Guard into plans to protect civilian sites, saying such deployments would require explicit plans and integration. He closed by commending the chairman and yielding back.
The hearing record shows discussion and proposals but no formal vote or directive on the topics discussed.
