US still not willing to unleash its cyber war capabilities against adversaries
Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. military has spent five years developing advanced cyberweapon and digital capabilities and is likely to deploy them more publicly soon, the head of the Pentagon’s U.S. Cyber Command said Thursday.The US should be unleashing its cyber offensive capacity against enemies like ISIL and al Qaeda at a minimum. I would also consider using it against any hackers who attack the US including those who attack US companies. The US has been far too reluctant to retaliate against China, Russia and Iran when they steal US data. They should have malware built into the systems to infect and attack computers used to hack US data.
Adm. Mike Rogers, who is also director of the National Security Agency, said U.S. policy makers have largely agreed on rules of engagement for when cyberweapons can be used for defense.
There is still an open discussion, however, about when cyberweapons should be used for “offense,” such as carrying out attacks against a group or foreign country.
“You can tell we are at the tipping point now,” Adm. Rogers said. “The capacity and the capability are starting to come online [and] really starting to pay off in some really tangible capabilities that you will start to see us apply in a broader and broader way.”
Still, Adm. Rogers stopped short of specifying how exactly these cyberpowers could be deployed in coming months.
Despite a series of high-profile cyberattacks in the past two years, including a large-scale breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. in late 2014 and the theft of millions of records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in 2015, Adm. Rogers suggested many Americans have become complacent, since they don’t see the rise of cyber armies and cybercriminals affecting their daily lives.
That could change fast, he said, if a cyberattack achieves large-scale destruction, particularly in a fashion resembling a more traditional weapon. Analysts have said these sorts of acts could including attacking a country’s electrical grid or knocking a nation’s financial system offline.
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The US is playing catch up in this area, at it is not one where we have the usual advantages. Bluntly, China has a much larger pool of highly intelligent and sophisticated programmers than we do, and this is not an area where you can train the untalented to perform well. If you are going to reach out and touch someone, you need to be VERY certain that they will not laugh you efforts off and casually do something like shut down your air traffic control or power grid, despite your best efforts.
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