The federal government is considering new options to aggressively counter foreign cyberattackers, with some in Washington considering the use of private companies to hit back.
The Biden administration created new partnerships with thousands of cyber companies, ostensibly to fortify defenses, share information and build resilience. As Republicans take charge across Washington with President Trump at the helm, some policymakers are considering using those private-sector partners in an offensive capacity.
During the House Homeland Security Committee’s first hearing of the new Congress, Rep. Clay Higgins questioned CrowdStrike Senior Vice President Adam Meyers about his view on his sector’s lack of ability to “strike back” against attackers.
“I think that there is a lot to be done to partner with law enforcement and those that have, the intelligence community as well and the military, that have the titled authority to take those actions and to support those operations,” Mr. Meyers told the Louisiana Republican, adding it was time to “increase the cadence” of those cyber operations.
“Just yes or no — if you had the legal authority to strike back, if Congress gave the cybersecurity industry the legal authority to strike back, would you be able to effectively identify the bad actor and do so?” Mr. Higgins said.
“We have the visibility to identify many bad actors,” Mr. Meyers said.
Amid China’s Typhoon hacking groups suspected of pre-positioning on American infrastructure in preparation for possible future sabotage, there is an appetite in the private sector for a more aggressive U.S. response.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Mark Montgomery, a former U.S. Navy officer, encouraged lawmakers to view suspected Chinese and Russian hacks of American infrastructure as akin to satchels of explosives strapped to American electrical power grids or port cranes.
“Somehow in cyberspace, they get a pass, that’s not right,” he said. “We need to be more offensive about this.”
Previously there was a clear division of labor between offense and defense in the U.S. government’s cyberspace strategy. Brandon Wales, former Biden administration cybersecurity official, said tandem operations have worked best when defensive actors share information about adversaries’ domestic cyberattacks with U.S. Cyber Command.
Mr. Wales told lawmakers that Cyber Command has successfully used such information to target ransomware operators, but he said more integration between offensive and defensive cyber operators was necessary.
The Trump administration appears open to new ideas about how to counter foreign adversaries in cyberspace. CIA Director-nominee John Ratcliffe told a Senate confirmation hearing last week that America’s spies must conduct operations targeting adversaries’ supply chains.
While he championed American spies’ need to disrupt enemies’ technology supply chains, he did not indicate how the CIA would conduct such operations under his watch — whether for espionage, sabotage or both.
Israel’s war with Lebanese Hezbollah militants last year offered one graphic illustration of how such warfare can be conducted. Booby-trapped pagers exploding in the hands of suspected Hezbollah militants showed the lethal effects of supply chain sabotage.
Earlier this decade, Russian hackers were found to be conducting a supply chain espionage operation via its breach of SolarWinds computer network management software. The compromised software infected U.S. federal agencies and gave Moscow unique access inside some of Washington’s most sensitive systems.
Whether the Trump team has designs on its own software supply chain operations involving private companies remains to be seen, but foreign adversaries clearly view American companies as legitimate targets in cyberspace.
Kemba Walden, who was acting national cyber director during the Biden administration, reminded lawmakers on Wednesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started with an attack on an American company.
“In 2022, the first shots fired in Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine were from a cyberattack targeting an American satellite communications company,” Ms. Walden said, urging lawmakers to take steps to increase cyber resilience.
The response to such attacks under Mr. Trump is expected to be far more confrontational than under former President Biden. Mike Waltz, Mr. Trump’s incoming White House national security adviser, said last month that America needs to shift from focusing primarily on playing defense in cyberspace.
“We have been, over the years, trying to play better and better defense when it comes to cyber,” Mr. Waltz said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “We need to start going on offense and start imposing, I think, higher costs and consequences to private actors and nation-state actors that continue to steal our data.”
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.