The Cyber Threat: Obama’s Diplomacy-Dominated Policy Ignores Growing Russian Cyber Danger

[Geee]

Free Beacon:

Cyber warfare and secret cyber intelligence-gathering operations by Russia pose a major threat to America, yet Moscow has managed to keep its activities largely secret while President Obama and his administration have failed to highlight the danger.

 

By contrast, two decades of aggressive Chinese military and intelligence cyber attacks that have caused serious damage to American security through the theft of government and private industry secrets have been given much more attention in both government and the private sector.

 

Less information has been made public about the nature and scope of Russian cyber activities, and the Obama administration has sought to avoid highlighting the threat over concerns doing so would upset its diplomacy-oriented national security strategy. The reliance on diplomatic solutions continues despite a major increase in threatening Russian activities, both cyber and conventional, including military aggression in Europe.

 

Moscow’s primary cyber war and spying agency is the Federal Security Service, known as FSB, that most closely resembles its Soviet predecessor agency, the KGB. The SVB foreign spy agency, along with the GRU military intelligence service, are the other two main actors behind aggressive covert and clandestine cyber warfare activities and intelligence gathering.

 

“The Russians are so good we don’t usually see them,” said James Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[Valin]

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