Many cybersecurity experts hope President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will take a new approach to cybersecurity, focusing on international cooperation and putting pressure on Russia and China for state-sponsored hacking.
Cybersecurity experts see a significant change in tone in the Biden administration. It comes after outgoing President Trump criticized long-term allies and attacked U.S. election systems’ security to try and overturn the results of his loss to Biden. Trump also fired Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, after Krebs disputed the president’s massive election fraud claims.
The most significant difference between Biden and Trump should be more international cooperation on cybersecurity, said Charles Denyer, a longtime cybersecurity consultant. The expected cooperation should mean that “our allies and other countries are more willing to work with the United States after tension with the Trump administration,” he said.
While the Biden administration may not make significant changes to national cybersecurity efforts, it will likely seek to build an international coalition, added Chenxi Wang, CEO of Rain Capital, a cybersecurity venture capital firm. “This will help to unite the Western countries against China and Russia in their quest for digital dominance,” she said.
Denyer also said he hopes Biden will put more pressure on countries such as China and Russia for state-sponsored hacking. The best way to do this, he said, “is by showcasing our strengths in the field of cybersecurity. The more advanced the United States is in terms of cyber offensive measures, the less likely our adversaries will want to attack the United States, as they’ll know full well what the repercussions are.”
The development of offensive cyberweapons has a downside, however. “With other countries also aggressively developing cyber capabilities, it lends itself to a cyber race where a digital detente may be the best or only course that plays out in the long term,” Denyer said.
Biden has signaled a more rigid approach toward China and Russia and toward cyberattacks, saying he would impose “substantial and lasting costs” on nations that interfere in U.S. elections, noted Adrian Zidaritz, longtime cybersecurity and artificial intelligence practitioner.
Wang also expects the Biden administration to invest more in cutting-edge research such as artificial intelligence and machine learning as a countermeasure to China’s increased focus on AI research and investment, she added.
While some cybersecurity experts suggested the Trump administration ignored or downplayed the issue during the past four years, Matthew Westfall, senior security consultant at application security provider nVisium, said Biden would inherit a cybersecurity operation that is in “good working order.”
Trump gave U.S. Cyber Command “unparalleled” new targeting authority, he said. “It is estimated that Cyber Command has conducted more operations in the last two years than it has in all previous years combined,” Westfall said. “The Trump shift away from traditional inhibitions and bureaucracy has unleashed a Cyber Command that is more active and agile than ever before.”
As such, Wang and other cybersecurity experts are optimistic about Biden’s nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas as secretary of homeland security. A former deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas focused on cybersecurity and negotiating cybersecurity agreements with other countries.
With Mayorkas leading DHS, “We anticipate that the Biden administration will use more diplomatic means and negotiations in dealing with Russia and other countries in terms of nation-state cyberthreats,” Wang said.
Mayorkas’s experience in fighting cybercrime “says a lot” about the Biden administration’s cybersecurity goals, added Chloe Messdaghi, vice president of strategy for Point3 Security. “It’s really kind of basic. He understands the importance of cybersecurity, and I think that’s absolutely a beneficial thing because it is rare in politics,” she said.
