David Charney
The most recent Cipher Brief Threat Conference was better than ever, providing a unique opportunity to get a full sense of what’s truly “top of mind” for intelligence community thought leaders. Every speaker’s central concern was cybersecurity, threats posed by our most dangerous antagonists, mainly China, and the three other usual suspects, Russia, North Korea and Iran. For example, for his “top of mind,” to quote General Michael Hayden, former Director of both the NSA and the CIA: “It’s China, China, China.”
I was especially alarmed hearing about stealthy intrusions into our public utilities, such as our water supplies. Our most basic survival systems could easily be shut down, leaving us unable to conduct our daily lives, much less survive a war. Government agencies as well as private sector companies make enormous efforts to build protective defenses against these multiplying hacks and intrusions. It’s become a vast game of Whack-A-Mole with threat actors inserting their malicious code everywhere they please and we can barely keep up.
By the end of the second day of the conference, I became bothered by something more—and it finally came to me. Close to the entirety of our efforts to counter cyberattacks are devoted exclusively to defensive measures, with almost no discussion of offensive measures.
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