Task Force to Counteract Russian Cyberattacks Has Been Created in the US

Photo from Ukrinform–UATV

A special task force has been created in the United States to prevent Russian threats in cyberspace, stated Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Bloomberg reported.

Russia has “great capabilities on which we will certainly be called upon,” Nakasone said late Saturday, “And if called upon, I think, no doubt we will ensure that we act.”

“I stood up a Russia group, a Russia Small Group. It’s in line with what the intelligence community has really been doing since post 2016, 2017. They steal intellectual property, they steal P.I.I. or information on personnel, they cause discord within our social ranks or attempt to undermine our elections, all below the level of war.”

He further described strategic engagement with Russia and China. “We have to have some manner upon which we’re going to look at being able to contest them in places like cyber space,” he said.

“If we decide that we’re going to stand on the sidelines, that we’re not going to bring the power of our nation against our adversaries in cyberspace, and that’s more than just cyber, it’s the whole capabilities that our nation has. I think again that we run the risk of our adversaries defining what they are going to do within this domain.”

The Washington Post reported on July 18 that the NSA and Cyber Command, the military’s cyber arm, will collaborate against Russian threats to the U.S. midterm elections scheduled in November of this year.

Nakasone serves as the commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, the director of the NSA and chief of the Central Security Service. He has served in Army assignments in the U.S., the Republic of Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. He helped design and launch the Cyber Command in 2010.

On July 13, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers on charges of hacking the computer networks of 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party.

On July 18, 2018, the New York Times reported that Vladimir Putin personally ordered cyberattacks during the 2016 U.S election. The evidence, shown to Donald Trump, included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information from a source close to Putin.