(PresidentialHill.com)- Multiple sources over the last month have warned of the growing threat of potential cyberattacks originating from various foreign governments.
The entities raising red flags have included President Joe Biden, tech companies such as Google and intelligence agencies.
On Sunday’s “60 Minutes” program, Christopher Wray, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s director, said:
“The biggest threat we face as a country from a counterintelligence perspective is from the People’s Republic of China, and especially the Chinese Communist Party. They are targeting our innovation, our trade secrets and our intellectual property on a scale that is unprecedented in history.”
The Threat Analysis Group at Google has said that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are the countries where the most malicious cyberattacks on the U.S. are likely to come.
Billy Leonard, who serves as the security engineer for Google, recently wrote a post that accused those countries of using the public’s interest in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine so they can spread malware.
In the post, Leonard wrote:
“Government-backed actors from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, as well as various unattributed groups, have used various Ukraine war-related themes in an effort to get targets to open malicious emails or click malicious links.”
In March, the Office of the Director of Nation Intelligence published the 2022 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The report said that cyberattacks that come from Iran mainly are either targeted toward Israel or are retaliatory in nature.
Those that originate in Russia, though, are focused on both disabling a country’s critical infrastructure and/or manipulating many communications organization.
As for North Korea, that country relies on cybercrimes and espionage, the report states, adding it’s “well-positioned to conduct surprise cyberattacks given its stealth and history of bold action.”
The report labeled China as the biggest cyber threat to the U.S., though. It called the Communist country “the broadest, most active and persistent cyber-espionage threat to U.S. Government and private sector networks … [The country is] almost certainly capable of launching cyberattacks that would disrupt critical infrastructure services within the United States.”
All of these reports coming in short order have raised alarms among many lawmakers, some of whom are vowing to do more to build up the national infrastructure so it’s stronger and more resilient.
Investments in cybersecurity have increased during the short tenure of President Joe Biden, and that’s likely to continue in the future. The budget plan that Biden proposed recently called for $10.9 billion in funding for cybersecurity that would be dispersed among civilian government agencies.
As the president said in a statement issued in mid-March:
“From day one, my Administration has worked to strengthen our national cyber defenses, mandating extensive cybersecurity measures for the Federal Government … and creating innovative public-private partnerships and initiatives to enhance cybersecurity across all our critical infrastructure.”
Public-private partnerships like the ones Biden described are fueling the growth in the industry. Statista has projected that revenues in the sector of domestic cybersecurity would increase all the way to $78.30 billion in four years, a massive uptick from the $40.70 billion it reached back in 2018.
