WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) questioned Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, about the cybersecurity threats that hostile nation-states, criminal organizations and terrorist groups pose to America’s public and private sectors.
“We’re never going to have the perfect weapon. Absent a game-changing offensive or defensive capability of the scale of the Manhattan Project, you can’t possibly get inside the decision cycles of the state actors, the organized crime, the terrorists,” said Senator Tillis. “We have 28 million small businesses, close to 19,000 businesses with 500 employees or more, we have distributive public infrastructure, whether it’s electric, water or gas. The concern I have is that right now we have the [defense] equivalent of guerilla sniper fire or mortar attacks. I think someday that we will see a nation-state or organized crime or a terrorist organization literally be in the position to execute a multi-pillar attack to disrupt you [the military] and then disrupt your ability to react to it by attacking the private sector, which is also integral to your supply chain.”
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