A newly revealed cyberattack shows that Russian hackers can threaten U.S. networks at will, according to a prominent Republican senator.
“A cyberhack of this nature is really the modern equivalent of almost Russian bombers reportedly flying undetected over the entire country,” Utah Sen. Mitt Romney told SiriusXM’s Olivier Knox in an interview airing this evening. “And they didn’t drop bombs, but they had the capacity to show that our defense is extraordinarily inadequate.”
Cybersecurity officials are still coming to grips with the extent of the hack, which targeted a major IT management company and thereby gained access to an array of U.S. government agencies that downloaded the company’s compromised software. Federal officials regard the hack as “a grave risk” to the U.S. government.
Russian diplomats have denied responsibility for the attack. Neither the federal government nor any of the private partners involved publicly identified who might have been behind the attack, but the FBI is looking into the Russian hacking group APT29, also known as Cozy Bear, as a potential culprit, according to the Washington Post.
“It is a hostile act against a nation with whom Russia trades,” Romney said. “So we don’t know whether they’ve actually, how much they’ve actually achieved, but what they’re showing is they have extraordinary cyberwarfare capabilities, and they think so little apparently of our capabilities that they’re doing this without much compunction.”
The extent of the harm goes far beyond mere embarrassment, according to a former senior adviser to President Trump. “The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months,” former White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert explained in a New York Times op-ed, adding that Russian intelligence officers “will surely have used its access to further exploit and gain administrative control over the networks it considered priority targets.”
President-elect Joe Biden implied that he will authorize retaliatory measures after a briefing on the attack. “A good defense isn’t enough; we need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place,” Biden said Thursday. “We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners.”
Senior congressional Republicans have signaled their support for a punishment. “This latest cyberattack only stresses what is at stake if we do not bolster our cybersecurity infrastructure and implement real penalties that deter future attacks,” tweeted Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the incident. “Turning a blind eye has only emboldened Putin & our adversaries, putting us at further risk.”
Romney, one of Trump’s most voluble critics in the Republican Party, offered a sharper rebuke of the outgoing GOP standard-bearer. “Our national security is extraordinarily vulnerable,” he said. “And in this setting, not to have the White House aggressively speaking out and protesting and taking punitive action is really, really quite extraordinary.”
