The FBI has rolled out a new strategy to deal with cyberattacks, which includes feeding intelligence to the Pentagon and other intelligence agencies to go on the offensive. Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee about the agency’s new strategy.
“An important part of fighting back against our foreign adversaries in the cyber realm is offense as well as defense,” Wrath said. “That’s a big part of this new FBI strategy that I rolled out.”
The strategy is meant to punish foreign actors who regularly target US cyberinfrastructure. The FBI director explained that the agency shares intelligence it obtains with its partners. Reports from earlier this year indicate that the CIA has been carrying out offensive cyberattacks.
In July, Yahoo! News reported that President Trump authorized the CIA to conduct offensive cyberattacks in 2018. Sources told Yahoo! News that the CIA has used the authority to carry out attacks on Iran and other adversary nations.
Wrath mentioned recent reports from the FBI that attributed cyberattacks to the governments of Russia, China, and Iran. With the November election approaching, the FBI and other intelligence agencies are regularly reporting cyberattacks from these countries. But locating the source of cyber activity and hacking is difficult, and the agencies rarely offer evidence to back up their claims.