Trump’s decision to eliminate role of cybersecurity czar rattles experts. Here’s why.
The Departments of Defense and Homeland Security will surely continue to stay on top of cyber threats, but the U.S. government has apparently lost the person who can aggregate them for the president and his staff, according to Megan Reiss, a senior national security fellow with the R Street Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research organization.
That means the West Wing might fail to see the big picture around what the director of national intelligence considers the No. 1 global threat, Reiss said. Russia, China and North Korea — not to mention terror groups and rogue criminals — could exploit the apparent disorganization and target the U.S.
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- Chinese espionage: China’s cyberoffensives against the U.S. have eased up since the two countries signed commitments in September 2015, according to Cappos. And yet Beijing continues to target U.S. companies. “They’re interested in stealing information on our companies, information on private citizens, things that could give them an edge or be used for blackmail,” said Reiss, the R Street Institute fellow.
