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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
New US strategy looks to blunt Russian and Chinese influence in | |
cyberspace | |
By Sean Lyngaas, CNN | |
Updated: | |
7:59 PM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
The US State Department on Monday released an ambitious new | |
cybersecurity strategy that seeks to curb Russia and China’s digital | |
influence in the developing world and blunt those countries’ alleged | |
efforts to interfere in elections. | |
With roughly half of the world’s population holding elections in | |
2024, their vulnerability to “cyber-enabled interference” is | |
“particularly acute” and requires the US to continuously expose | |
hackers and propagandists trying to undermine confidence in | |
democracies, says the strategy, which CNN has reviewed. | |
“We have communicated and will continue to communicate to Russia and | |
to China that we view interference in our democratic processes in the | |
United States as absolutely unacceptable,” Nate Fick, the State | |
Department’s top cyber diplomat, said in an interview. “Secretary | |
[Antony] Blinken has said it, and I have said it.” | |
Fick accompanied Blinken on a trip to China last month, where of | |
Chinese attempts to “influence and arguably interfere” with the | |
upcoming US elections. | |
The new State Department lays out principles that US diplomats will | |
try to use to rally support for implementing tech policies and | |
isolating autocratic regimes that control the flow of information. | |
Washington is “unleashing our diplomatic arsenal” to help | |
“innovative” tech firms from the US and elsewhere compete for | |
business opportunities, Blinken said in a speech announcing the | |
strategy on Monday at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, one of | |
the world’s biggest tech forums. | |
A key premise of the strategy is that economies and democracies need | |
cybersecurity to thrive. A catastrophic ransomware attack, for example, | |
can hobble an economy. A government can use phone-hacking spyware to | |
put dissidents in jail. | |
The State Department strategy looks to win over more developing | |
countries to what US officials call an “affirmative vision” for | |
cyberspace that rejects digital repression. It builds on years of US | |
lobbying allies and partners not to use key communications technology | |
and software made in autocratic countries like Russia and China. | |
US officials have long argued that the technology is less secure and | |
could be used for surveillance by Moscow or Beijing. But with the | |
strategy, US officials are stepping up their arguments that the entire | |
vision of the internet espoused by authoritarian arguments leaves | |
societies worse off. | |
“I think that repressive regimes, including [China] and other actors | |
… they’re in a lot of ways doing our work for us,” Fick told CNN. | |
“They’ve misused cyber and digital tools repeatedly to threaten | |
international peace and stability, to threaten economic security, to | |
exert malign influence, to undermine human rights. And that narrative | |
is becoming more widely understood and more broadly held, including in | |
the developing world.” | |
Fick pointed to Costa Rica, a US ally that suffered a devastating | |
ransomware attack by Russian-speaking hackers in 2022. The US announced | |
$25 million in aid to help Costa Rica recover from the hack, which | |
disrupted the Costa Rican government’s social security and finance | |
agencies. | |
Costa Rica has also heeded US advice in rejecting the use of Chinese | |
technology in its 5G mobile networks — a move that has angered | |
Beijing. Elsewhere, though, Chinese telecom firms like Huawei have | |
thrived, winning contracts across Africa. | |
“Of course we have our work cut out for us,” Fick conceded. “Of | |
course there’s still a degree of attraction in many economies for | |
these Belt and Road initiatives,” he added, referring to global | |
infrastructure projects that analysts say China uses as a diplomatic | |
tool. | |
Blinken alluded to Huawei’s dominance in some markets in his speech | |
on Monday. | |
“We’ve learned from the 5G experience that we cannot be complacent | |
and let strategic competitors dominate the technologies that form the | |
backbone of the global economy and that determine how and where | |
information flows,” Blinken said. | |
The United States’ top diplomat also warned that, while the country | |
“currently leads the world” in cloud computing technology, | |
“providers from authoritarian states are increasingly competitive.” | |
This story has been updated with additional developments. | |
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