US offers cyberhelp amid hacks
Washington making capabilities available to allies as a deterrent to intrusions
Washington: After years of ceaseless attacks from state-sponsored hackers, the US is toughening its stance in the cyberfight against Russia, China and other nations.
Critics have long charged that America’s response has fallen woefully short as adversaries targeted US national security networks, government agencies and voting systems.
But under a series of new measures, US officials are touting a more muscular approach – including a greater willingness to launch offensive cyber operations.
President Donald Trump recently revoked his predecessor Barack Obama’s rules requiring high-level authority for big military cyber operations, and National Security Adviser John Bolton warned that any country conducting cyberattacks could face an offensive response.
Then on Thursday, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said the US is making its cyber capabilities available to Nato, warning Moscow it must “pay the piper” after the Netherlands revealed an alleged plot by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Coincidentally, the US on Thursday indicted seven GRU agents as part of a joint crackdown with Western allies on a series of major hacking plots attributed to Moscow.
Mattis said an international response to hacking attacks would not necessarily be a tit-for-tat cyber offensive, but told Moscow it would “have to be held to account”.
RAND Corporation intel and cyber expert Cortney Weinbaum said that in today’s modern threat environment, kinetic weapons alone are no longer sufficient.
She said she interpreted Mattis’ comments “as meaning that the US will offer all of our warfare capabilities, which now include cyber, to defend the Nato alliance members”.
“This pledge will hopefully have a deterrent effect to prevent such a scenario from occurring,” she added.
Other experts also approved of the move.
“Nato needs to ensure it has the requisite tools, capabilities and strategies in place to match the current threat environment,” Frank Cilluffo, who directs the McCrary Insitute for Cyber & Critical Infrastructure at Auburn University, said.
Still, the Pentagon is playing catch up as it bolsters its capabilities, having for years under invested in talent that all too often is swiped up by the well-paying private sector.
“A great deal of the department’s cyber-readiness issues revolve around the shortage of skilled cybercapable personnel,” Senator Mike Rounds, who heads a Senate cybersecurity subcommittee, said last week.
“The current recruitment, pay, retention, and career pathway structures in place are not equipped to manage this problem.”
Last month, the Pentagon released a revamped cyber strategy that states it will conduct cyberspace operations to collect intelligence and prepare military cyber capabilities to be used in the event of crisis or conflict. — AFP