back to article Trump administration wants to go on cyber offensive against China

President-elect Donald Trump's team wants to go on the offensive against America's cyber adversaries, though it isn't clear how the incoming administration plans to achieve this.  Speaking to CBS News' Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday, Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), Trump's pick for national security advisor, said …

  1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    "We have been, over the years, trying to play better and better defense when it comes to cyber"

    Bollocks. Every time anyone tries to improve security and reslience they get resistance from the companies, states and representatives.

    From May this year

    https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2024/05/more-70-surveyed-water-systems-failed-meet-epa-cyber-standards/396727/]

    The report found "More than 70% of surveyed water systems failed to meet EPA cyber standards"

    and states,

    "The EPA has tried to push hardened security mandates onto water operators, but the agency in October rescinded a memorandum that would have directed providers to evaluate the cyber defenses of their water systems when conducting sanitation surveys. The measure, which the agency said was permissible under the Safe Water Drinking Act, faced legal pushback from GOP-led states and trade groups."

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      But that would cost money to improve security on all these services, while "offense" merely involves a few sound bytes and releasing an AI generated video clip with eagles in American flag hoodies against a green screen text monitor.

      1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

        "But that would cost money ..."

        How much might it cost in, say, multiples of Gerard Ford class Carriers with full completment of F35s?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          But those are worth a lot in votes

          You can't make much publicity on cutting the ribbon of the "Richard M Nixon hacking center" and other than Star Trek conventions nobody is celebrating fleet-week for the Cyber-Security 1st Guards Regiment

  2. vtcodger Silver badge

    The US and China signed a pact in 2015 pledging not to attack each other, but neither side has upheld its commitments, assuming US and Chinese allegations are accurate.

    And who among us would doubt the word of US and/or Chinese intelligence agencies, for is not written that spies never lie?

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Howard Sway Silver badge

    "We've got a tremendous private sector with a lot of capability"

    Sounds like somebody's thoughts on cybersecurity have not progressed much further than "capitalism good, commies bad" here. If you're confident that putting profit first means that the most popular operating system in use in your country is also the most secure, then I fear you may be in for some disappointment regarding its robustness when the inevitable retaliation arrives.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: "We've got a tremendous private sector with a lot of capability"

      Good option: A few secret-budget $Bn goes to the usual suspects for unspecified activities related to cyber offensives. The usual suspects use this to buy back their shares and pay CEO bonuses, share price goes up - everyone happy.

      Worst option: They announce bounties, every script kiddie does an attack and then tries to claim a bounty. Hong-Kong Shanghai Bank Corp sounded Chinese so I ransomware'd them, where's my money? This hospital had Lenovo laptops, so obviously Chinese, so I was doing my patriotic duty when I crashed their systems.

      Probable option: 15mins has gone by and that story wasn't scoring well in clicks so over to a viral video of a Squirrel

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Be they Slow Learners or are they of Severely Limited Intellectual Ability ‽

        Good option: A few secret-budget $Bn goes to the usual suspects for unspecified activities related to cyber offensives. The usual suspects use this to buy back their shares and pay CEO bonuses, share price goes up - everyone happy. ..... Yet Another Anonymous coward

        Have the lessons not been learned in the West from their rabid descent into constant inflation and negative progressive growth and wild ponzi business and unicorn outfit valuations which such activity generates to poison and destroy societies and business dynasties ...... and which be easily exploited and taken great advantage of by peer competition and hostile enemy and frenemy alike.

        Is it the parasitic feed that exclaims the need for the delivery of profit in order for anything to prosper and succeed not an obvious major problem to be solved and removed from the global human equation whenever profit is just an arbitrary additional punitive cost and unsustainable exclusive executive expense for nothing tangibly supplied?

        And although not one of those "unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones" ..... which US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld advised everyone about and which should also be as gravely regarded as that which President Dwight D.Eisenhower's Farewell Address warned everyone about almost 64 years ago but which is still something yet to be successfully addressed and universally remedied to halt it preying on the public like a parasite hosting a pandemic virus, ..... being a universally well known known doesn't make it any less difficult to deal with and propose resolving with a permanent viable fix ...... before everything collapses and crashes in systems held dear and vitally indispensable supporting the abomination, for all the currently available evidence more than just suggests that is the next step in line being autonomously taken and/or anonymously driven, as such cases always seem to be.

  5. Sora2566 Silver badge

    "Defending is too hard, and costs too much money - I know! We'll go on the offensive! After all, that'll be much easier and cheaper! And if there's anything the last few years has shown us, it's that another country cyber-attacking yours makes you just roll over and give up!"

  6. VoiceOfTruth

    Look in the mirror

    "We need to start changing behaviors on the other side, "

    Yeah. How about the USA stops hacking? Make no mistake here, the USA is not the good guy. The USA cannot point a finger and claim itself to be 'exceptional'. Much like the oft-mentioned 'rules-based international order', who wrote those rules, what are these rules, and if somebody breaks the rules who holds the rules-breaker to account? The USA would be at the top of the list of rules breakers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Look in the mirror

      Back in your box, troll.

      1. Blakey

        Re: Look in the mirror

        They're only wrong in the sense that the USA did, in fact, largely write the rules for their own benefit and so wouldn't be on the top of the list of rules breakers. After all, they made their own activities legal. I mean, the Hague invasion act says it all, and none of their war criminals ever actually are tried. Nor indeed the others all around the world, unless they happen to come from poor nations not aligned with the global hegemon. What a strange coincidence! Even at My Lai, the USA was more concerned with trying to prosecute the men who stopped it and told the world than the actual mass murderers.

        So yeah, they aren't the good guy. They are forever invading far poorer countries for resources and/or to protect their own interests.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Look in the mirror

          Right on, like Crimea (Ukraine), Ukraine (Ukraine), South Ossetia (Georgia), Transnistria (Moldova), ... Afghanistan, Syria, ...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Look in the mirror

          I seem to recall there was a certain amount of desperation when Josef Biden withdrew from one of those "poorer countries"—if we were evil oppressors, you'd think the locals would've been happier to see us leave.

          The ICC is run by a bunch of third-rate banana republics. There's no way a superpower needs to listen to them—they have no actual authority, and they're certainly not impartial.

    2. JamesTGrant Bronze badge

      Re: Look in the mirror

      You’re back! Hello VoT and handler!

    3. Casca Silver badge

      Re: Look in the mirror

      You still have no clue what your name means I see.

  7. Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck

    If you think the US has never used their InfoSec resources to attack another nation, you haven't been paying attention to the news. They admitted as much as attacking Iran's centrifuges that they were using to purify uranium under control of a SCADA system. Nor is that likely to be an isolated incident.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Of course, that was targeting a nuclear-weapon plant of a regime largely seen as off their rocker enough to actually use them. As opposed to China targeting civilian water supplies. The first is fine under the usual laws of warfare (and is a lot less likely to escalate than simply bombing the plant), while the other is an attack on civilians.

  8. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Alert

    How to fix the cyber offensive environmant

    Let's return to original data rates of 300 bits per second for all international exchanges, there was no malware in those old days because it took far too long to deliver all attacks. Look at all the complaints that countries have about other countries social media apps ... 300 bps would solve those issues too.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: How to fix the cyber offensive environmant

      > there was no malware in those old days because it took far too long to deliver all attacks

      Herr Zimmermann might disagree

  9. O'Reg Inalsin

    One thing is (almost) for sure

    China mainland has never paid a hackers ransom (I would be willing to bet) . That is the US' biggest weakness.

  10. Mitoo Bobsworth

    LOL

    That's all.

  11. ecofeco Silver badge
    Mushroom

    LOL wut?!

    As if this isn't happening every second of every day already?

    It's an absolute free-for-all on the Internet these days. From nations to small time crooks, it's all out cyberwar. It's a billion Spidermen all pointing at each other.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmm, take on the Chinese you say

    I’d be surprised if the Trump Administration could pull the skin off a rice pudding.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The endgame

    All the world's data belongs to the US and Chinese governments. No-one else.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like