Collaborate Disseminate
U.S. cyberspace policymakers view military principles with a dangerous disregard of what it actually takes to make American networks secure.
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President Joe Biden said this week that the U.S. government could respond to Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine “the same way, with cyber.” The answer may have been a standard U.S. government response about responding in-kind, especially in the context of a deteriorating security situation on the border between Ukraine and Russia, with Biden predicting a Russian invasion. National security experts, foreign leaders and Biden’s domestic political opponents criticized his overall remarks on the potential Western response to any Russian incursion, but the cyber-specific comments got their own round of questions from cybersecurity experts as well. To some, Biden’s words reflected dated and misguided thinking that sounds good and tough but makes no sense in the real world. “Tit-for-tat cyber has always been a fantasy for policymakers,” tweeted Jacquelyn Schneider, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and expert in cyber policy and national security. She pointed to the difficulty that the […]
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U.S. Cyber Command was on the verge of again publicly calling out North Korean hackers for targeting the financial sector in late September, but ultimately backed off the plan by early October, multiple sources familiar with the decision tell CyberScoop. The announcement was to be part of a Cyber Command effort to publicly share malware samples on VirusTotal, a web platform dedicated to tracking malware. Led by Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, those postings are intended to call out adversary-linked hacking in the hopes that it will deter groups from similar efforts in the future. It wasn’t clear why the decision was made to refrain from publicly posting malware samples this time around, despite the fact that Cyber Command has done so numerous times in recent months. It didn’t appear to be an issue of accuracy — the Pentagon outfit still decided to share private advisories with threat intelligence companies and the financial sector. A […]
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A former U.S. Cyber Command official said Thursday that China and Russia’s use of cyberattacks has upended the way the U.S. military thinks about warfare, given the incidents’ direct impact on civilians rather than armed forces. Brett Williams, a former deputy of operations for the command, said at an IT conference in New York City that the two adversaries have made it so the military can no longer “play an away game.” “What I mean by that is [the U.S. likes] to fight away games,” Williams said at an event held by Tierpoint, held during CyberScoop’s NY CyberWeek. “We don’t want to have to fight here [on U.S. soil]. Anything we get into with China and Russia, the first impact is going to be felt on our civilian population.” Williams also said he believes both countries’ actions — he spoke specifically on China’s intellectual property theft and Russia’s targeting of […]
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Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wednesday they would consider plans offered by a Obama administration official to fight back against Russian aggression in cyberspace. Victoria Nuland, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told lawmakers that it would be pragmatic for the country to consider a new “fusion center” to deter foreign election meddling similar to what occurred in 2016. The approach Nuland described would look like the counter-terrorism model pursued by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. “On the President’s direction and with Congressional support, the Trump Administration could immediately establish a multi-agency Fusion Center, modeled on the National Counter Terrorism Center [(NCTC)] but smaller in size, to pull together all the information and resources of our government to identify, expose and respond to state-sponsored efforts to undermine American democracy through disinformation, cyberattack, and abuse of the internet,” Nuland said. Senior […]
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With the prospect of a trade war on the horizon between U.S. and China, cybersecurity and policy experts say government-backed cyberattacks between the two countries may spike after years of calm. For the last two weeks, Chinese and U.S. government officials have been sparring over the potential creation of tariffs, which would place a tax on foreign exports coming into America. “Potential tariff implementation could raise uncertainty over the possibility of a trade war between the two countries and possibly drive a further uptick in Chinese cyber espionage,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, in a email to CyberScoop. “CrowdStrike has seen some pickup in Chinese cyber espionage activity over the last year, and we expect this trend to continue … There tends to be a shift in activity from nation-state adversaries when major geopolitical events occur.” Historically, the Chinese government has successfully employed hackers to advance their […]
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The Trump administration explicitly called out the Chinese government Thursday for having hacked U.S. companies to steal business secrets in recent years. The disclosure means the U.S. government believes China broke a 2015 agreement reached by then-President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping that was aimed at curbing cyber economic espionage between the two countries. A Department of the Treasury investigation detailed in a 215-page report published Thursday finds multiple cases where China had continued to conduct economic cyber espionage after the 2015 arrangement was announced. The report does not, however, explain these incidents with any specifics. “After a major debate in the private sector cybersecurity community over the past three years about the level of Chinese cyber activity directed against U.S. organizations and its meaning related to China’s commitments, the 301 report can be read as effectively ruling that China is in violation of the 2015 Obama-Xi accord on cyber […]
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Kaspersky Lab has upped its legal fight with the U.S. government, filing another lawsuit related to a ban against its products tucked within the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act. Based on court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Russian company says the ban is unconstitutional. Kaspersky’s lawyers say that under the Constitution’s Bill of Attainder Clause, Congress is forbidden “from enacting laws which impose individualized deprivations of life, liberty, and property and inflict punishment on individuals and corporations without a judicial trial.” The 2018 NDAA instituted a government-wide ban on use of Kaspersky products. Signed by President Donald Trump in December, the ban would go into place on Oct. 1, 2o18. “Kaspersky Lab believes that these provisions violate the U.S. Constitution by specifically and unfairly singling out the company for legislative punishment, based on vague and unsubstantiated allegations without any basis in fact,” the […]
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During a week where multiple senior Ukrainian government officials came to visit Washington, a bill designed to foster further collaboration on cybersecurity efforts between the U.S. and Ukrainian governments passed the House of Representatives late Wednesday night. Known as the “Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017,” the bipartisan legislation was first introduced by Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., in April 2017 just three months after news surfaced that a massive electric power blackout in Kiev had been caused by a complex cyberattack. Cybersecurity experts later attributed the attack to Russian hackers. The bill, which was cosponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., passed with a 404-4 vote. In practice, the bill would encourage greater cooperation between the U.S. and Ukraine regarding several key digital defense priorities, including a promise that the U.S. will support the Ukrainian government when or if requested. The law mandates that this partnership be organized through a Department of […]
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The new year marked the beginning of yet another Chinese cybersecurity law that could have a big impact on U.S.-based technology companies. Known as the “Public Internet Cybersecurity Threat Monitoring and Mitigation Measures,” the rules call on private companies conducting business in China to report and hand over cyberthreat information to the government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). China founded the MIIT in 2008 in order to regulate the country’s burgeoning information technology industry. The law instructs companies to turn over information regarding both cyberattacks they’ve faced and also any “cyber threat intelligence” they own. Cyber threat intelligence is typically collected by cybersecurity firms and software giants like Microsoft and used to strengthen security operations. The regulation states: “after cybersecurity threats are discovered by relevant professional organizations, basic telecommunication enterprises, cybersecurity enterprises, Internet companies, domain name registration management and service organs … information shall be submitted to MIIT, provincial, autonomous […]
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