America Is Under Cyber-Attack, and It’s More Than Russian Election-Meddling
An interesting, provocative piece from Deborah Lee James, former Secretary of the U.S. Air Force.
The United States is under attack.
Having served as Secretary of the United States Air Force, I know this for a fact. Our sovereign border – and our critical infrastructure – has been breached in a number of serious ways. Without immediate action, America’s lights could quite literally go out.
Last month, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) illustrated the gravity of threats facing the U.S. energy sector while interviewing Karen Evans, President Trump’s pick to lead a new energy cybersecurity office.
“Right now, there is no deterrence. We are entirely defensive and ultimately that is a losing strategy. We know that a cyberattack is coming at some point. It’s the longest windup for a punch in the history of the world, and shame on us if we’re not prepared for it,” said King, as reported in The Hill.
Foreign covert operatives have successfully breached the critical infrastructure on which every aspect of our society relies: the vital industrial control systems (ICS) that serve as the backbone of our economy, electrical grid, security, financial services, health and transportation systems. Should any or all of these assets fail, the results would be catastrophic.
For two years, we’ve been inundated with evidence that Russian threat actors stole and leaked private communiques to influence the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, the volatility and antagonistic rhetoric consuming American politics has half of the country doubting the validity of warnings from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA).
Independent of your political leanings, just-released findings in the Department of Justice’s Cyber-Digital Task Force report should make believers of even the most skeptical audience.
According to the DOJ task force’s report, “This is not a hypothetical threat: one of the Iranian hackers indicted for the DDoS attacks against the U.S. financial sector is also alleged repeatedly to have gained access to the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (‘SCADA’) system of a dam in New York, allowing him to obtain information regarding the dam’s status and operation. Had the system not been under maintenance at the time, the hacker would have been able to control the dam’s sluice gate.” The sluice controls water flow, allowing dam operators to avert potentially catastrophic failure by draining off excess water.
Still not convinced?
Seventy-seven percent of executives surveyed in the “State of Industrial Cybersecurity” report admitted that they believe their Industrial Control System (ICS) network will suffer an attack, yet nearly half have no measures in place to even detect such an attack. Considering National Intelligence Director Dan Coats’ warning that nation-state threat actors have targeted our energy, nuclear, water, aviation and critical manufacturing sectors, this documented complacency and lack of preparedness is both alarming and irresponsible.
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Photo Credit: U.S. Dept. of Energy