Lessons learned from the ongoing cyber warfare raging between Russia and Ukraine should be applied to other scenarios, including ongoing tensions between China and Taiwan.
Laura Galante, director of the Director’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Center for Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration, said at RSA Conference 2023: [we should] Take a look at some of the lessons learned working closely with Ukrainians and other allies. ”
She added: And that is now the China-Taiwan scenario. ”
Galante said Ukraine has had “incredible success” in its cyber resilience efforts, and against that backdrop, intelligence agencies and the cyber community will have to defend themselves in situations like Taiwan and China. said that we can start looking at the types of partnerships we have.
Alex Kovzanets, assistant legal counsel at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said, “I know China is very careful about what’s going on in Ukraine. are lessons learned, and we’re cataloging them so you can read how the world and the United States will react.”
The importance of pre-planning was emphasized in another session by Eric Goldstein, Executive Assistant Director of Cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
He said the cyber attacks carried out against Ukraine in 2015 and 2016 prompted Ukraine to develop several key steps to improve its cybersecurity resilience.
Read more: Russian cyber tactics in Ukraine focus on espionage
“What are our thoughts on the potential for future conflict and the prospects for future Chinese actions against Taiwan? How are you building those plans now?” he said.
Goldstein stressed the need to take appropriate security measures. He also said that it is important for Ukraine to have both functional and social resilience and that it is important to think about how to build that across the United States and allies.
talk Information security Ahead of the RSA conference, Chairman Pam Nigro, the board of directors, ISACA and Medecision’s vice president of security said that from a private sector perspective, cybersecurity leaders are still paying close attention to the geopolitical landscape. said.
“I was spending extra time when Russia and China were united. I am a little worried.”
Nigro noted that despite working hard to catch up, critical infrastructure is particularly vulnerable because it hasn’t been invested much this year.
“The changing geopolitical landscape means threat actors and threats are changing and focusing on different targets from different locations,” she said.
Partnership is Ukraine’s winning formula
The partnership is critical to Ukraine’s cyber success, and on the second day of RSA, Illia Vitiuk, head of the cyber and information security division of the Security Service of Ukraine, said that the government and private sector’s commitment to Ukraine’s cyber resilience is critical. He stressed the importance of partnerships.
Vitiuk admits that the Ukraine-Russia conflict is the first true example of full-scale cyber warfare.
He said partnerships with U.S. government agencies and the broader cybersecurity industry during the early stages of the conflict were a “psychological game changer.”
“At the moment, I still need a lot of support, but so far I feel pretty supported,” he said.
He emphasized that the Ukrainian experience shows how a small country can stand up to a big one as part of an alliance.
U.S. assistance to Ukraine began in earnest in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region.
In relation to cybersecurity, this support included training, sharing of best practices, and joint operations against international cybercriminal organizations.
