Earlier this week, Minnesota witnessed what might be the most terrifying digital assault on an American city to date. The entire city of St. Paul went offline. No Wi-Fi. No servers. No internal infrastructure. A full blackout.
And now the National Guard is involved.
Governor Tim Walz officially declared a state of emergency and signed an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard’s cyber protection unit. Their mission? To determine what data — if any — was accessed, stolen, or compromised.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter issued a chilling statement: “This was not a glitch. It was a deliberate, coordinated attack carried out by an external actor intentionally and criminally targeting our systems.”
What’s even more alarming is the silence. There’s no media frenzy. No national panic. Just a handful of official statements and local reports. Meanwhile, an entire American city’s data might be in foreign hands.
Is this just the beginning? Was this a test run for something much larger? The National Guard has boots on the ground — not for a hurricane or riot — but for a war in cyberspace.
