As of February 4, 2025 there is no publicly reported ransomware incident in the City of St. Paul that has required activation of the Minnesota National Guard. That absence of reporting is not the same as an absence of risk. Municipal networks remain attractive targets for financially motivated criminal groups and the potential for a large local government compromise is real.

When state or local governments cannot contain a disruptive cyber incident with internal or commercial resources they commonly request additional help from state assets, and that can include National Guard cyber forces under the governor’s authority. National Guard cyber units have been used in recent years to assist civilian entities during ransomware recovery and to support continuity of operations for critical services. The Vermont deployment to support a university health network after a 2020 ransomware event is an example of how Guard cyber teams can augment civilian response capacity.

What a Guard cyber response looks like in practice depends on the incident and the authorities granted by the governor. Typical Guard tasks in municipal cyber incidents include rapid forensic triage, containment support to limit lateral spread, help with credential resets and rebuilds, network segmentation planning, secure provisioning of temporary infrastructure to restore critical services, and liaison to federal partners. These teams are not law enforcement and do not conduct criminal prosecutions, but they can provide technical capability that local teams or private contractors may not have available at scale. More broadly, states have increasingly integrated Guard cyber units into domestic cyber response plans and exercises to prepare for these scenarios.

Operational considerations and limits

  • Activation and legal posture. Governors authorize Guard activations for state missions. That authority determines the Guard unit’s role, the duration of the mission, and whether support will be purely defensive and advisory. Guard cyber teams normally operate with clear rules of engagement and legal boundaries to avoid overreach into civil authorities or law enforcement domains.

  • Scope and speed. Guard cyber forces bring trained personnel but are finite in number. Expect an initial small task force focused on stabilizing and triaging the environment, not an instant full restoration of every service. Realistic priorities are emergency communications, public safety interfaces, payroll and HR continuity, and restoration of critical citizen-facing services that protect health and safety.

  • Coordination with federal agencies and contractors. State Guard cyber teams often work alongside state IT shops, private incident response firms, the FBI, and CISA. That multilayered coordination is necessary when incidents involve criminal investigation, potential data exfiltration, or when federal threat intelligence is required to attribute activity and harden defenses.

  • Forensics versus recovery tradeoffs. A common tension in ransomware incidents is the tradeoff between preserving forensic artifacts for investigation and taking immediate recovery actions. Guard teams typically help structure a controlled approach: collect volatile evidence, snapshot affected systems where possible, then execute a prioritized recovery plan that restores the most critical functions first.

Practical steps St. Paul or any similar municipality should take now

1) Pre-authorize mission templates. Establish, with the Governor’s office and the state National Guard, pre-authorized support agreements that define mission scope, data handling rules, and privacy protections. That reduces time lost in legal and procurement debates if a serious incident occurs.

2) Integrate Guard playbooks into tabletop exercises. Running realistic exercises that include Guard cyber elements, federal partners, and commercial responders exposes coordination gaps and clarifies handoffs in a crisis. Exercises improve the speed and quality of recovery under stress.

3) Harden backups and recovery plans. Immutable, air-gapped backups with tested restore procedures are the single best technical mitigation against encryption-focused ransomware. Guard assistance is powerful, but it is not a substitute for baseline hygiene. Regular restoration drills are essential.

4) Prioritize identity and segmentation. Credential compromise and lateral movement are recurring factors in municipal intrusions. Enforcing least privilege, multifactor authentication, and segmented network design limits blast radius and simplifies recovery.

5) Prepare public communications in advance. Residents rely on municipal services. Preapproved messaging templates, alternate phone routing, and public-facing contingency plans reduce panic and provide clear guidance during outages.

Why caution matters

Activating the National Guard to assist in a cyber incident is an escalation that signals severity. That step buys technical capacity and state-level coordination, but it also reflects systemic gaps in municipal preparedness. The better approach is to reduce the probability that a city will need Guard-level assistance by investing in prevention, detection, and resilient recovery practices now.

If St. Paul or any city faces a large-scale ransomware event in the future the Guard’s cyber forces can be an effective augmentation when used within a coordinated, legally grounded response framework. The goal should be to harden municipal systems so that state-level military assets are rarely required, and to ensure that if those assets are needed they are integrated into a well-rehearsed plan that safeguards civil authority, privacy, and continuity of operations.