Cybersecurity
Cyber Command Is in the Ransomware Game—Now What?
Some unresolved questions that policymakers must consider in exploring a role for the military in countering ransomware.
Dr. Erica Lonergan (nee Borghard) is an Assistant Professor in the Army Cyber Institute. She is also a Research Scholar in the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Prior to that, she held positions as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council. Previously, Erica served as a Senior Director on the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Erica also held an appointment as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, with placement at JPMorgan Chase and US Cyber Command, and has served as an Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Rupert H. Johnson Grand Strategy Program in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. Erica received her PhD in Political Science from Columbia University. She is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations. The views expressed are personal and do not reflect the policy or position of any U.S. government organization or entity.
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Some unresolved questions that policymakers must consider in exploring a role for the military in countering ransomware.
Recent ransomware attacks against the United States are raising questions about whether and how the military, specifically U.S. Cyber Command, might counter this type of malicious cyber activity. Here, we provide a road map for policymakers to help guide their decision-making on this critical policy challenge.
A bilateral agreement on cyberattacks against financial integrity would be an important first step that could help build confidence to make progress on other, more challenging areas. Yet, even for this issue, there are opportunities to make progress if expert consultations begin with a more narrowly defined policy problem.
Future conversation needs to move beyond the military versus intelligence contest binary construct to more meaningfully explore how states may seek to use cyberspace for multiple objectives, either in sequence or in parallel.
There is a gap between how administration officials are framing the nature of the SolarWinds incident and what the available evidence indicates about it.
Cyber Command plays a part of the U.S.’s election defense, but other entities are better positioned to defend against certain election interference threats.
A major force program will help solve the problem.