The Cybersecurity 202: Nearly two-thirds of cybersecurity experts think Biden’s response to Russian hack is sufficient
“The Biden administration responded both forcefully and responsibly, and I assume the Russians know that while the [United States] is not escalatory, we are no longer going to ignore provocation,” said cybersecurity entrepreneur Dave Aitel.
After entering office in January, Biden ordered a sweeping review of the SolarWinds attack and other Russian aggressions, including election interference. The full extent of the damage wrought by the attack is unknown and officials believe there are still many unnamed victims.
“The SolarWinds Orion hacking campaign called for that kind of retaliation combining financial and political punishment,” said Jay Kaplan, co-founder and chief executive of Synack. “The response shows that the Biden administration is not going to sit back and let Russia, China, North Korea or any of our other adversaries continue carrying out damaging cyberattacks that victimize thousands of companies and costs hundreds of millions to clean up.”
Many experts suggested the sanctions were a step in the right direction after years of failing to hold Russia accountable.
“A serious situation received a proportionate response, far beyond what administrations have done in large nation-state cyber espionage cases previously,” said Scott Montgomery, chief technical officer at the Federal Resources Corporation.
Experts often criticized former president Donald Trump for undermining the findings of his own intelligence community about Russia’s election interference. In a December Network survey, a majority of our experts said Trump led the nation in the wrong direction on cybersecurity.
“The Biden administration‘s response was direct and well coordinated across the interagency, which was a significant departure from the last four years when dealing with Russia,” said Chris Cummiskey, CEO of Cummiskey Strategic Solutions.
“In contrast to President Trump, who actively avoided any effort to hold Russia accountable, the Biden administration‘s actions were a refreshing change and apparently the beginning of a larger plan of signaling, action and potential engagement with Moscow,” said Chris Painter,…
