The cyber-saber rattling has reached an all-time high between the
United States and Russia. According to the NBC News and other media outlets:
“Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.”
While America is “choosing targets”, or as Joe Biden recently said in the link above, preparing to “send a message to Putin” which will be “at a time of our choosing” is falling directly into what our adversary’s want. They’re goading us into creating another cold war, except this time its cyber related.
What America, or honestly anyone under attack, needs to do first it establish a solid defense of their own networks and systems. We’re worrying too much about attacking other nations, or showing who has the biggest cyber muscles, that we’re continually leaving ourselves vulnerable to attack. A nation under the microscope, especially during an election year, needs to hunker down and protect itself before anything else. We keep hearing questions about how our leaders will increase cyber security and their first response to this question is to go on the attack. Today’s cyber-elephant is Russia, yesterday it was China, next month it will be someone else, but we’re still not fixing the problem. This problem is combined with everyone sucking at security to begin with and having the ol’ cyber beer muscles when they’re offended/hacked. What makes a nation with its new found cyber toys think going on the offense with a weak defense will succeed? Not good.
We’re taking the bait Russia is throwing at us and we’re being drawn into another fight for no reason. If we put the same focus on protecting our data that we did trying to exploits someone else, we might not be in this mess. Our attackers are going to change and by trying to pummel them into submission will only increase the attacks towards us. We need to clean our house first before we even consider going on the offensive. I’m not saying we should sit back and let other nations bully us from afar, but there needs to be real wisdom on when we should initiate an offense. We surely shouldn’t engage because we’re embarrassed or because our pride is hurt. Lord knows we’ve attempted similar attempts ourselves. Hopefully, we’ll realize this before it’s too late.
“Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.”
While America is “choosing targets”, or as Joe Biden recently said in the link above, preparing to “send a message to Putin” which will be “at a time of our choosing” is falling directly into what our adversary’s want. They’re goading us into creating another cold war, except this time its cyber related.
What America, or honestly anyone under attack, needs to do first it establish a solid defense of their own networks and systems. We’re worrying too much about attacking other nations, or showing who has the biggest cyber muscles, that we’re continually leaving ourselves vulnerable to attack. A nation under the microscope, especially during an election year, needs to hunker down and protect itself before anything else. We keep hearing questions about how our leaders will increase cyber security and their first response to this question is to go on the attack. Today’s cyber-elephant is Russia, yesterday it was China, next month it will be someone else, but we’re still not fixing the problem. This problem is combined with everyone sucking at security to begin with and having the ol’ cyber beer muscles when they’re offended/hacked. What makes a nation with its new found cyber toys think going on the offense with a weak defense will succeed? Not good.
We’re taking the bait Russia is throwing at us and we’re being drawn into another fight for no reason. If we put the same focus on protecting our data that we did trying to exploits someone else, we might not be in this mess. Our attackers are going to change and by trying to pummel them into submission will only increase the attacks towards us. We need to clean our house first before we even consider going on the offensive. I’m not saying we should sit back and let other nations bully us from afar, but there needs to be real wisdom on when we should initiate an offense. We surely shouldn’t engage because we’re embarrassed or because our pride is hurt. Lord knows we’ve attempted similar attempts ourselves. Hopefully, we’ll realize this before it’s too late.
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