Retired U.S. General Keith B. Alexander, the longest-serving director of America’s National Security Agency, says most nations are not ready for the cyber attacks that could come their way. Ukraine has experienced the brunt of Russia’s cyber attacks in many ways, including attacks that temporarily knocked out the nation’s electrical power grid and government websites. Cyber warfare has also supplemented Russia’s conventional weapons being used in the eastern Donbas.
Russian hackers have two principle motivations, Alexander told the Kyiv Post in an interview on the sidelines of the Yalta European Strategy conference that ends on Sept. 16.
“There’s a criminal aspect to Russian hackers: to steal money,” he said. “The other element is that Russia is very advanced in using cyber as an element of national power. We saw that in Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia and elsewhere.”
The Kremlin engages in cyber warfare, he said, because “it’s effective. Just because we don’t like it, it doesn’t mean the adversary is not going to use it. It means you have to defend yourselves and we have not done so effectively.”
His advice for Ukraine is two-fold: He said government should encourage and support students in universities to learn cyber communications and how to become “future defenders,” whether in government or in private business, like Alexander is in now as CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity in Fulton, Maryland.
“Some won’t stay in government, and that’s good,” Alexander said. “They will build companies like mine for Ukraine. But you need to plant that seed with today’s young leaders.”
For Ukraine, a nation with vastly more limited financial resources than the United Staes, Alexander also recommends that its leaders “work with allies.” He said that “if people can afford iPhones, they can afford security.”
While it’s tempting to launch cyber attacks on Russia and others in retaliation, Alexander said nations have to be careful before going on the offense. He said America predominately plays defense, but is prepared to attack in the interests of national security.
“If you use cyber offense, that invites somebody else to attack,” Alexander said, so any nation engaged in cyber attacks needs to make sure it is able to defend against incoming attacks.
But not even the United States, he said, is adequately prepared. The nation needs to be focused on “fixing our cyber defense. It’s not sufficient. We built a cyber defense that the offense can easily go through.”
Dictators and authoritarian leaders like Putin have some advantages over democracies in building cyber capabilities, Alexander said, because they don’t have to worry about civil liberties and privacy issues.
But in the long run, democracies come about ahead because they have debated the issues and adopted laws and procedures striking the proper balance between security and privacy.
“In certain areas, this puts Putin ahead of us. As much as I hated our debates; it’s a strength of our country to have those. In crisis, we move swiftly,” Alexander said.
