DNI’s Annual Threat Assessment
The office of the Director of National Intelligence released its “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.” Cybersecurity is covered on pages 20-21. Nothing surprising:
- Cyber threats from nation states and their surrogates will remain acute.
- States’ increasing use of cyber operations as a tool of national power, including increasing use by militaries around the world, raises the prospect of more destructive and disruptive cyber activity.
- Authoritarian and illiberal regimes around the world will increasingly exploit digital tools to surveil their citizens, control free expression, and censor and manipulate information to maintain control over their populations.
- During the last decade, state sponsored hackers have compromised software and IT service supply chains, helping them conduct operations—espionage, sabotage, and potentially prepositioning for warfighting.
The supply chain line is new; I hope the government is paying attention.
Winter • April 15, 2021 8:11 AM
The most deadly part of Cyber War is the way states are trying to spread disinformation about the pandemic and vaccination. Given that the pandemic has already killed more than 3 million people (300,000 Americans, for those who are not interested in other humans), a disinformation campaign is underway to double that number by letting vaccination campaigns fail.
This is really a low cost and low risk strategy to inflict a lot of death and destruction on your neighbors.
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/04/14/viewpoint-war-against-the-west-russia-powers-global-vaccine-rejectionist-movement-even-as-it-inoculates-its-own-citizens/
https://www.unian.info/politics/covid-19-eu-concerned-about-russian-disinfo-about-vaccination-11315759.html
https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/nato-stratcomcoe-examines-vaccination-disinformation-trends.a390198/