The head of U.S. counterintelligence said the government would unveil a new strategy to combat insider threats that have afflicted the spy world.
“We had a horrible year last year in 2019, with indictments, arrests, convictions of clearance-holders as well as arrests, indictments, convictions of nontraditional collectors in the private sector — theft of intellectual property and trade secrets,” William Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said Tuesday.
“It was not a good year for industry nor the government,” he said at a meeting of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, according to the Washington Times.
China, in particular, has been a subject of concern as a number of former intelligence officers have been recruited by Beijing to pass along government secrets. At least four Americans pleaded guilty or were convicted of espionage or attempted spying in the past two years.
Top government officials have increasingly warned about China’s “whole-of-society” approach to conducting espionage through its intelligence services, state-owned enterprises, private companies, students, and researchers.
Through its Thousand Talents Program, Beijing has recruited academics and entrepreneurs to work in China in an effort to gain access to proprietary information.
Last week, the Justice Department accused three scientists, including the chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department, of working on behalf of China, as the FBI seeks to root out theft of biomedical research from American universities and laboratories.
John Demers, the top national security official at the Justice Department, acknowledged last month that changing China’s behavior “has proven to be a real challenge,” partly because of the pressure it can put on its citizens to steal information.
Evanina said Russia, Iran, and North Korea join China in being a top threat to U.S. national security.
“We are going to then take a look at a whole-of-nation approach, a whole-of-society approach to what we believe are true to our values, our laws, our morals, what we believe to be true about the fundamental nature of our country,” Evanina said of the new plan. “From election security to foreign influence, economic security to critical infrastructure, we are going to look at everything and say it is no longer a government-just issue — it’s everyone’s issue.”
Evanina said the government was trying to prepare better those who work in the private sector to defend themselves against foreign adversaries.
“We are still the land of awesomeness, we make amazing things,” Evanina said. “It can’t just be the old guns, gates, badges, and the person who’s in charge of making sure our computers work. It has to be a wider net of understanding.”
