National Security Council are looking at offensive cyber as an evolution to previous policies that have focused on deterrence.
The White House’s senior director for cyber wants to “destigmatise” offensive cyber operations, saying they are a vital tool in the government’s playbook in its battle with foreign adversaries.
According to CyberScoop, Alexei Bulazel from the National Security Council told an audience at the RSA Conference in San Francisco that he views offensive cyber as “one arrow in the quiver” when weighing response options to an adversary’s actions against the country in the digital realm.
Saying this is about being able to respond in kind “if we’re the victim of foreign aggression,” he and his team at the National Security Council are looking at offensive cyber as an evolution to previous policies that have focused on deterrence.
He noted there are different ways in which the U.S. could respond in an offensive manner, including degrading the tools, tactics or procedures our adversaries use to conduct attacks.
“If we understand that an adversary has an intent or has a given tool that they’re going to use, and we know they’re going to exploit a given vulnerability, we can work with the private sector or through agencies like DHS’s CISA, proactively patch those vulnerabilities, and get ahead of the adversary, and maybe conduct an operation against the adversary,” he said.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
