Time to restore America’s cyberspace security system

China’s campaign to break into our critical infrastructure and federal government networks is persistent and growing. Beijing is stealing information while also planting tools and maintaining access in key systems, giving it the option to pressure the United States in the future. Russia also continues to test our critical infrastructure with increasingly sophisticated operations, support criminal operations, gather intelligence, and possibly prepare for future disruption of essential services. Iran and North Korea are also ramping up disruptive attacks on hospitals, schools, local governments, and global commerce. Our adversaries’ offensive cyber operations are not slowing down. But America’s cyber defenses are falling behind.

When Congress created the Cyberspace Solarium Commission in 2019, our mandate was clear: prevent a cyber catastrophe before it strikes. We remember sitting with the commissioners — Republicans, Democrats, industry leaders, and national security veterans — knowing we were attempting something no country had tried before: to build a strategy for defending a digital society at scale. We delivered that strategy, along with 116 actionable recommendations. Many of those reforms reshaped federal cyber policy, and for a time, the United States was gaining ground.

Today, we are seeing erosion across core pillars of America’s cyber posture. Cybersecurity mission capacity is strained; public-private collaboration is losing momentum; federal agencies are operating without stable leadership; and coordination with allies — once one of our greatest strategic advantages — is failing to keep pace with our adversaries who now operate globally and relentlessly. These are not routine dips in activity. They are symptoms of strategic drift.

Read more at CyberScoop