White House National Security Adviser John Bolton on Thursday promised to cooperate with allies, including Taiwan, to tackle cyberattacks from adversaries.
The US’ “first fully articulated cyberstrategy in 15 years” is now in effect, Bolton said.
The more aggressive posture follows a decision by US President Donald Trump to revoke rules established by former US president Barack Obama to require high-level authority for any big military cyberoperations.
Photo: AFP
“Our hands are not tied as they were in the Obama administration,” Bolton said. “For any nation that’s taking cyberactivity against the United States, they should expect ... we will respond offensively, as well as defensively.”
“Not every response to a cyberattack would be in the cyberworld,” he added.
The US is facing intensified cyberthreats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, he said.
On the defensive side, US efforts are to include “network hardening” and improved cybersecurity, the Pentagon said, but the new strategy of what the Pentagon called “countering, disrupting, degrading and deterring” attacks emphasizes much more than better firewalls.
US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said that his agency “has used its cybersanctions authorities to impose costs on Russia, North Korea, Iran and others for a wide range of behavior.”
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said that her department would push “for electronic surveillance and computer crime laws to be updated to keep pace with the rapidly evolving environment.”
The US Department of State focused on what it said would be increased efforts to build up Internet security in allied countries “because of the interconnected nature of cyberspace.”
In response to a question about reports that Taiwan has been targeted by increased cyberattacks from China and if the US is considering talking to its counterparts in Asia regarding the issue, Bolton said: “There will be consultations — there have been already — with our friends and allies, because many of us are vulnerable to the same hostile actions.”
“I think it’s very important that we work through our alliance structures, where we can do that, and I think that’s part of the deterrent effect that our adversaries ought to think about, that we do have a robust structure of international alliances, and we intend to keep them strong in cyberspace,” he said.
Taiwan has seen a bout of cyberattacks from China as local elections approach, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
“China, along with Russia and North Korea, may be increasingly testing out cyberhacking techniques in Taiwan before using them against the US and other foreign powers,” a government source was cited as saying.
The tests involve new malware tools mostly used to target government agencies, including the ministries of foreign affairs and economic affairs, Howard Jyan (簡宏偉), director of the Executive Yuan’s Department of Cyber Security, told Bloomberg News.
“Based on matching patterns, sophistication and other characteristics, it’s likely that the majority of the cyberattacks come from groups supported by China,” Jyan said. “We believe the number of cyberattacks will rise before the elections.”
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