China has the capacity to wreak havoc on the United States power grid and cripple other cyber-related infrastructure said National Security Agency director and head of U.S. Cyber Command Adm. Michael Rogers during a House Intelligence Committee hearing
“China’s economic cyber espionage… has grown exponentially in terms of volume and damage done to our nation’s economic future,” said Rogers. “The Chinese intelligence services that conduct these attacks have little to fear because we have no practical deterrents to that theft. This problem is not going away until that changes.”
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) asked the director about a recent private report that detailed a security breach from Chinese hackers deep in the American electrical grid and other vital infrastructure. The director admitted that not only China had such capabilities, but also “one or two” other countries.
“We’re watching multiple nation states invest in this capability,” said Roberts. He likened the current geopolitical atmosphere to that of the Cold War, except with more actors. Cyber attacks are relatively easy to commit, and nations can act on nefarious plots easily with anonymity.
“You can literally do almost anything you want, and there is not a price to pay for it,” said Roberts.
Roberts stressed the fact that nations should develop Rules of War for cyber attacks so that countries can properly define what will be construed as an instigation, such as stealing intellectual property from corporations or attacking civilian infrastructures like hospitals.
“We need to define what would be offensive, what’s an act of war,” said Roberts.
Roberts recommended that Congress pass a long standing bill that would allow companies to share information about malware and suspicious users with each other and the government, but recent revelations from Edward Snowden have since squelched any potential solutions.
