The Biden administration is warning critical infrastructure operators to brace for battle spilling over into the cyber realm if the conflict between Russia and Ukraine gets hot.
The federal government is not suggesting a threat is imminent to Americans, and officials instead implored private cybersecurity professionals to raise their shields now as a precaution.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is telling people to beware of foreign adversaries using cyber tools they’ve refrained from deploying in previous attacks, according to Mark Bristow, CISA cyber defense coordination branch chief.
At a webinar Monday hosted by the cybersecurity firm Dragos, Mr. Bristow implored network defenders of important sectors such as pipelines and water systems to be on their A-game.
“It is a blizzard and you are looking for a couple of snowflakes,” Mr. Bristow said. “And it’s hard to parse through that noise but this is a time where, no really, we need people to be focused and really paying attention; lowering your thresholds for what you investigate, what you report, how hard you pull on the threads.”
The situation in Ukraine remained tense. Russia had more than 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine and President Biden said an invasion could happen at any moment, though they were pursuing a diplomatic solution.
Mr. Bristow stressed to the conference that he was not saying Russia is going to attack in the cyber realm but that now is the time when America’s biggest adversaries may use sophisticated cyber tools not before seen.
The National Security Agency’s Morgan Adamski likewise urged closer cooperation with the federal government to defend Americans against potential cyberattacks. Ms. Adamski, chief of the NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, said her agency understands the foreign threats well but the private sector’s network defenders understand their own terrain best.
“We only have one part of the picture,” Ms. Adamski said during the webinar. “We really focus on those foreign cyber threats, those nation-state threats, but to your point earlier, we may not know what’s impacting the U.S. critical infrastructure and we may not know how to fully define it.”
The Biden administration also urged federal officials across the government to prepare for cyber chaos. In a conference call, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement, military and other government officials with oversight of critical infrastructure to prepare for Russian cyberattacks, according to Yahoo! News.
The Biden administration previously courted private cyber companies to improve America’s defenses. Last year, CISA took a lead role in building the Biden administration’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative that enlists tech companies to help fight hackers and cyberattackers.
The federal government’s working relationship with private cyber experts is growing all the time. The NSA and CISA have partnered with Dragos on a project called “Neighborhood Keeper,” which is designed to foster real-time intelligence sharing between cyber experts in the public and private sectors.
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The new collaboration with Dragos was announced on Monday.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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