US warned it's sleepwalking into disaster as China and Russia prepare to inflict chaos

A recent report by the Heritage Foundation warns that, of all the threats facing the United States, none have “grown as fast, or in a manner as difficult to understand, as the danger from cyberattacks.”

This fact is not lost on Michael G McLaughlin, a cybersecurity specialist and ex-US Navy Intelligence officer, and William J Holstein, a veteran journalist who has written numerous books on tech-related threats. The duo’s new book, aptly titled “Battlefield Cyber” expertly outlines the cyberthreats facing the United States. Specifically, the cyberthreats facing the US from countries like China and Russia.

When readers think of a catastrophic cyberthreat, as the authors note, they usually imagine a “Cyber 9/11” or a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” Such scenarios, however, are highly unlikely.

As the duo write, America won’t be brought to its knees in one hour or one day; instead, it will be brought to its knees over the course of many hours, days, weeks, and years. Nations crippled by the effects of cyberwarfare die a death by a thousand cuts.

Throughout the book, the authors highlight a range of threats, including Kremlin-sponsored ransomware and the infiltration of U.S. defense industries by Beijing-backed actors. China, suggest the authors, poses a bigger threat than Russia. In fact, not only does China pose a bigger threat than Russia, it now appears to be a more dominant cyber force than the US. China’s ascendancy is driven by two equally important factors: (1) It’s vastly superior espionage capabilities (2) The numerous vulnerabilities of the American system, including its overreliance on Chinese markets, driven largely by U.S. businesses desperate to cash in on a huge market.

On the second point, the authors warn that all businesses, including US-owned ones, are compelled to share their cyber source codes as a condition for operating in China. This, they warn, creates an entirely asymmetric situation, giving Beijing an upper hand over lawmakers in D.C. Furthermore, as the book discusses, Russian and Chinese actors regularly use Made in America platforms to spread misinformation and further divide the American people. In addition to shedding light on the actions and intentions of the United States’ adversaries, McLaughlin and Holstein also offer some strategies to avert a cyber-related disaster. These include greater levels of training and vigilance, as well as the introduction of legislation mirroring the CHIPS and Science Act, which was designed to strengthen the US.semiconductor industry.

Holstein, one of the authors of the book, tells the Daily Express US that “the United States and its allies around the world have not yet truly woken up to the nature of the threat posed to them by the authoritarian states of China, Russia and Iran.”

“We can see clearly that they have created a kind of entente,” he adds, “and are cooperating to support wars against Western interests in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

China and Russia, according to Holstein, have mastered the art of penetrating the United States’ Information Technology systems, which are all linked to the Internet. However, they have slightly different but overlapping interests. “The Chinese,” he adds, “have stolen billions of dollars worth of technology, including the design for their new Fujian aircraft carrier (a dead knockoff of America’s Gerald R. Ford class of carriers.) Seeking to shape the global discourse, they are using Artificial Intelligence to plant disinformation in the West’s social media. The widespread use of TikTok and other Chinese applications has given the People’s Republic the ability to engage in cognitive warfare by, for example, amplifying the voices of younger Americans who are dissatisfied with their economic prospects and therefore with President Biden.”

In effect, Beijing is already interfering in American politics and, in the words of Holstein, “in the politics of every democracy in the world.”

As for the Russians, they “are most interested in using ransomware to extort billions of dollars from the West’s schools, hospitals and companies of all sizes. That serves the shared goal of undermining confidence in our own institutions.”

Both countries, according to Holstein, “have planted malware in the critical infrastructure supporting the U.S. military and the rest of civilization as we know it. The Americans almost certainly have returned the favor, but our best guess is that the West’s penetration of the authoritarian states is not as extensive because at the end of the day, they are closed systems. Their governments control their telecommunications. There is no private sector.”

Which begs the questions: What can be done? What must be done? And what happens if nothing is done?

“The first step,” he says, involves “accepting the nature of the threats. Big Tech has emerged as an important tool for the Chinese and Russians because its software is porous. CEOs and boards of companies of all sizes heed the siren call of profit and simply do not invest enough in the security of their data. Perhaps the greatest challenge is to find new ways for the public and private sectors to collaborate.”

Holstein finishes by stating the following: “Critical infrastructure is owned mostly by the private sector, which resents government efforts to persuade it to spend more on resilience and extra capacity. And the 300,000 companies in the Defense Industrial Base have fought off efforts by the Pentagon to audit their IT systems to safeguard their security. The result is that the Chinese have been able to engage in wholesale theft of the personally identifying information of the top leadership of the U.S. Navy, the maintenance schedule for American ships in the Pacific, and other information that would be crucial in any military confrontation. In short, the traditional checks and balances in a democratic system have prevented a coherent response.”

In other words, radical changes are needed. And if these changes don’t come, the United States may, in the not so distant future, find itself in the most precarious position imaginable. The thousandth cut is not far away, it seems.