US Cyber Command

US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the US Department of Defense. It was established in 2009 as a sub-unified command under US Strategic Command and elevated to a full unified combatant command in 2018. Its headquarters is at Fort Meade, Maryland, co-located with the National Security Agency (NSA).

USCYBERCOM's mission spans three broad lines of effort: defending the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN), supporting joint force commanders with cyberspace effects, and defending the nation against significant cyberattacks. It directs the operations of the Cyber Mission Force, a set of teams drawn from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force, organized into Cyber National Mission Teams, Combat Mission Teams, and Cyber Protection Teams.

The command is led by a four-star officer who, under a longstanding "dual-hat" arrangement, simultaneously serves as Director of the NSA and Chief of the Central Security Service. This arrangement has been periodically debated in Congress and by independent reviews, with proponents citing operational synergy and critics warning about the blurring of military and intelligence authorities.

In 2018 the Trump administration issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 13, which reportedly streamlined approvals for offensive cyber operations. USCYBERCOM has publicly acknowledged conducting hunt forward operations — deploying defensive teams to partner countries such as Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Montenegro to identify adversary malware on host networks. It has also been associated with operations against the Islamic State's online infrastructure and with election-security activities around the 2018, 2020, and 2022 US elections.

Its doctrine emphasizes persistent engagement and defend forward, concepts articulated in the 2018 DoD Cyber Strategy, which argue that contesting adversaries continuously below the threshold of armed conflict is more effective than reactive defense.