The Plot to Hack America

1. The President should address the nation before the election and use the bully pulpit to make the nation aware that an operation has been run against the United States by a hostile intelligence agency, and that the security of the system is paramount. He should allow the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the United States to assist any and all state and local organizations to use the maximum resources of the nation to ensure the integrity of the election.

2. The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Cyber Command should be directed to create a temporary joint public-private partnership, a Priority Infrastructure Cyber Security Cooperative (PICSC), in order to rapidly disseminate detected threats and solutions that will be available industry wide and without cost in order to stop emergent hacks. We require a central organization where anyone who has been hacked can report the incident for analysis. Many cyber security experts believe that we need an international Hackers Defense Network in order to allow academics, researchers, and intelligence agencies to work together to correctly identify, analyze, and score attacks with a single common standard.

3. The administration should make clear that the United States will respond to this attack at a time and place of its choosing. The target should be chosen by U.S. cyber command. If we do not communicate our intent to punish any further meddling, it will occur again. The argument that Russia will attack our infrastructure with a cyber disruption is no reason to allow them to damage our freedom to choose our government without retribution.

4. National recognition and awareness of the enormity and fully-integrated propaganda that emanates from the Russian state entities Russia Today, Sputnik News and other state disinformation agencies. These agencies should be called out for generating centralized propaganda and influencing our electorate through carefully-timed “conspiracy theory” releases that work to our detriment.

Where the candidates themselves stand is revealing as well. When discussing response to Russian cyberwarfare Hillary Clinton spoke about the attack and stated “As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack… We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses.”³

On the other hand, Donald Trump seems to admire Russia’s capacity to hurt our nation through cyberespionage. Apart from that, there is little evidence that Trump knows or cares about cyberwarfare. In a fluff interview conducted by General Michael Flynn, Trump was asked about cyber war. He gave a peculiarly ignorant answer: