While the Democrats and the mainstream media are busy running around telling Americans that our democracy is about to fall into the hands of a would-be tyrant in President Donald Trump, the saner heads who run our intelligence community believe that the U.S. needs to be far, FAR more concerned about the threat of international cyber attacks.<\/p>\n
In testimony before the Senate on Thursday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that the U.S. was behind the curve when it came to preparing and fighting the cyber war, even though digital attacks were \u201cone of the top \u2013 if not the number one threat\u201d facing the country.<\/p>\n
Last week, President Trump took a big step forward on the subject, signing an executive order that outlined plans going forward for federal agencies to get out in front of this dire threat. According to TechCrunch, the timing of the order \u2013 though overshadowed by the news of James Comey\u2019s firing \u2013 could not have been better:<\/p>\n
Firstly, this development was truly important \u2014 a serious call to action to beef up government cybersecurity measures at a time when breaches dominate the headlines and mounting worries about a future cyber war among nation-states are legitimate.<\/em><\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/em><\/p>\n The EO\u2019s call for federal government agencies \u2014 especially civilian agencies \u2014 to seek opportunities to share cyber technology makes a great deal of sense.<\/em><\/p>\n The tech site said it was also time for the federal government to look beyond the usual, established vendors \u2013 particularly because some of them have links to China and Russia. But perhaps more importantly, the larger vendors are seldom on the cutting edge of the hacking scene, meaning they don\u2019t necessarily possess the right tools for the modern age.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must recognize where most of the innovation in cyber actually takes place \u2014 in small, private cybersecurity startups \u2014 and take steps to help the government purchase technology and services from these companies,\u201d they wrote. \u201cThe government today relies mostly on large, established cyber vendors and integrators, many of which do not sell state-of-the-art wares. The government must restructure procurement policies to attract more innovative blood into the game. Buying yesterday\u2019s solution to defend against tomorrow\u2019s challenges and threats is a waste of time and money \u2014 and does not make us more secure.\u201d<\/p>\n A massive cyber-attack could take down much of the Eastern seaboard\u2019s critical infrastructure, leading to widespread power outages, document leaks, and banking crises. In some ways, an attack like that would be even more devastating than the biggest of bombs and the fallout could have far longer ramifications.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time for our nation\u2019s politicians and journalists to dig themselves out of the constant Trump Drama and start paying at least a little bit of attention to the real threats to America\u2019s national security.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n