The U.S. military needs to improve its ability to deter attacks on its computer networks, and is working to make them more costly for U.S. adversaries, top U.S. military and intelligence officials told a Senate hearing on Tuesday (September 29).
In the hearing, officials also expressed skepticism about a recent agreement with China to stop cyber attacks, and said more is needed to combat the Islamic State’s online recruitment.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work told Senators that deterrence capabilities need to be increased.
“I want to acknowledge up front that the secretary and I recognize that we are not where we need to be in our deterrent posture. We do believe that there are some things the department is doing that are working, but we need to improve in this area without question. And that’s why we’ve revised our cyber strategy,” he said.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the committee that cyber threats to the U.S. national and economic security were increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication and severity of impact, both by countries such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as non-state actors.
He also said he was skeptical China would follow through on a cooperation agreement concluded between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Well hope springs eternal. I think we will have to watch what their behavior is and it will be incumbent on the intelligence community, I think, to depict, portray to our policy makers what behavioral changes, if any, result from this agreement,” he said.
Asked directly if he was optimistic the agreement would eliminate Chinese cyber attacks, Clapper responded “No”.
Officials also said that more needs to be done to counter online recruiting and propaganda by Islamic State.
“I have always believed that we must contest ISIL in the information domain every bit as much as we are contesting them on the battlefield, that the information dynamic is an essential component of their vision, their strategy and ultimately their success. And we have got to be willing to attempt to fight them in that domain just like we are on the battlefield. And we are clearly not there yet,” said NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers.
During Xi’s recent visit to the U.S., the two countries reached a “common understanding” on curbing economic cyber espionage. But the agreement stopped short of any promise to refrain from traditional government-to-government cyber spying for intelligence purposes.
That could include the massive hack of the federal government’s personnel office this year that compromised the data of more than 20 million people. U.S. officials have traced that back to China but have not said whether they believe the government was responsible. (Reuters)