{"id":219341,"date":"2026-03-03T06:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/you-cant-separate-the-physical-from-the-cyber-says-new-yorks-first-security-and-intelligence-director\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T06:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T11:35:09","slug":"you-cant-separate-the-physical-from-the-cyber-says-new-yorks-first-security-and-intelligence-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/you-cant-separate-the-physical-from-the-cyber-says-new-yorks-first-security-and-intelligence-director\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You can’t separate the physical from the cyber,’ says New York’s first security and intelligence director"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘You can’t separate the physical from the cyber,’ says New York’s first security and intelligence director<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-york-colin-ahern-security-intelligence-director\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-03 06:03:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: statescoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n

In recognition of the many creative \u2014 and sometimes offline \u2014 modes of influence employed by the nation\u2019s adversaries, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week promoted Colin Ahern, formerly the state\u2019s chief cyber officer, to serve as its first director of security and intelligence.<\/p>\n

Ahern\u2019s new role, according to the governor\u2019s press materials, will \u201cprovide strategic direction and further unify the State\u2019s security assets.\u201d Hochul noted that \u201cthe threats we face are more complex and interconnected than ever before\u201d and enjoined the state to be \u201caggressive, innovative and adaptive\u201d as New York\u2019s new intelligence director operates across all levels of government, the region\u2019s critical infrastructure providers, academia and the private sector, addressing attacks online, but also taking on malign foreign influence campaigns, \u201chybrid warfare and other national security issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emerging doctrine of our adversaries\u201d \u2014 China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, \u2014 is an \u201call of the above, all the time approach to either holding specific targets at risk, i.e. obtaining access to them via cyber means, or the ability to conduct attacks on the space, for example via drones,\u201d Ahern said in an interview. He explained that recent instances around the globe of hybrid warfare \u2014 a combination of tactics that can be as technical as a ransomware attack or as analog as political skullduggery \u2014 have illustrated the \u201cblurring of the lines between cyber and physical attacks, and physical impact of cyberattacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colin Ahern (LinkedIn)<\/p>\n

He pointed to Poland, where Russia has not only employed cyberattacks in an attempt to disable its power grid, but is funding so-called single-use agents to stimulate social unease and erode support for the war in Ukraine. Ahern said his role is intended primarily to advance the state\u2019s economic development and workforce goals, and to \u201cmanage the risk that the changing…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘You can’t separate the physical from the cyber,’ says New York’s first security and intelligence…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2262665546.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-219341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219343,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219341\/revisions\/219343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}