A top U.S. cybersecurity official said Wednesday that as she prepares to leave office, China-backed attacks on American infrastructure pose the gravest cyber threat to the country. And she believes they will get worse.
Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called recent Chinese cyber intrusions the “tip of the iceberg,” and warned of dire consequences for U.S. critical infrastructure in the event of a U.S.-China conflict.
“This is a world where a war in Asia could see very real impacts to the lives of Americans across our nation, with attacks against pipelines, against water facilities, against transportation nodes, against communications, all to induce societal panic,” Easterly said during the Winter Summit of the Cyber Initiatives Group Wednesday.
Cyber attacks have increasingly targeted U.S. critical infrastructure — whether the attackers are seeking ransomware or aiming to do damage at the behest of America’s adversaries.
Hackers tied to Iran, Russia and particularly China have been accused recently of seeking to breach cyber defenses in the transportation, communications and water sectors — for a variety of reasons and with a range of success. And as experts often tell us, these elements of the nation’s critical infrastructure are only as safe as the weakest links in a complicated system that sits primarily in private sector hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment