Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: On February 13, 2018, the Director of National Intelligence stated in his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will pose the greatest cyber threats to the United States during the next year through the use of cyber operations as low-cost tools of statecraft, and assessed that these states would work to use cyber operations to achieve strategic objectives unless they face clear repercussions for their cyber operations .
The 2017 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the United States Intelligence Community stated that The potential for surprise in the cyber realm will increase in the next year and beyond as billions more digital devices are connected—with relatively little built-in security—and both nation states and malign actors become more emboldened and better equipped in the use of increasingly widespread cyber toolkits. The risk is growing that some adversaries will conduct cyber attacks—such as data deletion or localized and temporary disruptions of critical infrastructure—against the United States in a crisis short of war. .
On March 29, 2017, President Donald J. Trump deemed it necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order No. 13694 as Significant malicious cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. . On January 5, 2017, former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Marcel Lettre, and the Commander of the United States Cyber Command, Admiral Michael Rogers, submitted joint testimony to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate that stated As of late 2016 more than 30 nations are developing offensive cyber attack capabilities and that Protecting critical infrastructure, such as crucial energy, financial, manufacturing, transportation, communication, and health systems, will become an increasingly complex national security challenge. .
There is significant evidence that hackers affiliated with foreign governments have conducted cyber operations targeting companies and critical infrastructure sectors in the United States as the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury have announced that— on March 15, 2018, five Russian entities and 19 Russian individuals were designated under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, as well as pursuant to Executive Order No. 13694, for interference in the 2016 United States elections and other malicious cyber-enabled activities; on March 24, 2016, seven Iranians working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated entities were indicted for conducting distributed denial of service attacks against the financial sector in the United States from 2012 to 2013; and on May 19, 2014, five Chinese military hackers were charged for hacking United States companies in the nuclear power, metals, and solar products industries, and engaging in economic espionage.
In May 2017, North Korea released WannaCry pseudo-ransomware, which posed a significant risk to the economy, national security, and the citizens of the United States and the world, as it resulted in the infection of over 300,000 computer systems in more than 150 countries, including in the healthcare sector of the United Kingdom, demonstrating the global reach and cost of cyber-enabled malicious activity. In June 2017, Russia carried out the most destructive cyber-enabled operation in history, releasing the NotPetya malware that caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage within Ukraine and across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
In May 2018, the Department of State, pursuant to section 3(b) of Executive Order No. 13800, prepared recommendations to the President on Deterring Adversaries and Better Protecting the American People From Cyber Threats, which stated With respect to activities below the threshold of the use of force, the United States should, working with likeminded partners when possible, adopt an approach of imposing swift, costly, and transparent consequences on foreign governments responsible for significant malicious cyber activities aimed at harming U.S. national interests. .
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