Expert witnesses this week offered members of Congress a menu of recommendations – ranging from innovation-fueled security practices to better efforts to protect educational networks – to meet security threats posed by foreign adversaries to communications technologies.
During a House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology subcommittee hearing on Jan. 11., Clete Johnson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, offered three core principles for Congress to consider.
“Number one, we must implement dynamic flexible cybersecurity practices that innovate even faster than cyber threats,” he said.
“Number two, we must harness powerful market drivers for security, reliability and resiliency that aligned directly with government interests and number three, build accountable partnerships based on deep ongoing collaboration between government and industry,” stated Johnson.
Johnson argued that China-based adversaries have the potential to inflict damage to America’s telecommunications infrastructure through untrusted networks and components embedded in systems across the U.S.
“I think that that it is pretty simple that if you have untrusted equipment in a network, and that untrusted equipment has a connection with an aggressive cyber espionage and cyberattack state … then you have an ever-present threat in multiple ways,” stated Johnson.
Jim Richberg, head of cyber policy at Fortinet, talked about the importance of securing communications infrastructure for K-12 school systems that are under-resourced as they face potential threats from foreign adversaries.
“This is part of the soft underbelly,” he said. “These are under-resourced organizations, and I’ve had conversations with K-12 districts who say they would love to increase their network defenses, but that means they have to give up teachers’ aides in the classrooms,” said Richberg. “It is a zero-sum game.
“So yes, it is critically important. There is too much student data, financial data, and all of this is exposed,” he added. “This is a target of opportunity for criminals. There is a lot that can be done in this area.”
