Prior to this weekend’s developments regarding a possible implosion in Russia amid the war with Ukraine, the news cycle has been primarily dominated by developments regarding the classified documents indictment of former President Trump and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter’s, plea deal with federal prosecutors over his failure to about $1 million in taxes and falsifying information in the process ofpurchasing a handgun.
As a result of the media’s decision to give the majority of the top headlines to these matters, some very important news regarding the overall security of America has flown under the radar.
Security has appeared to be far from top of mind for the Biden administration, as evidenced by the disregard shown to the security of the southern border, where according to a document titled “Biden’s border crisis is the worst in American History,” prepared by the Senate Republican Conference, “In Fiscal Year 2021 alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection experienced 1.7 million encounters with aliens at the southern border, the highest number ever recorded in a single year.”
A majority of Americans living outside of border states are aware of this issue however, as according to a May 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 26% say they approve of Biden's handling of immigration.
That’s likely because media concentrates on the physical border crisis, unlike the issues plaguing our digital borders, which has reached zero hour. The average citizen is ignorant to the fact that there are literally 560,000 thousand new pieces of malware created daily. This includes adware, viruses, trojans, keyloggers, and crypto miners, which are all developed to steal data, currency, execute spying operations, or disrupt critical infrastructure.
Joe Biden has largely failed in the first half of 2023 in properly addressing these matters, as recent reports indicate that multiple US government departments and several hundred private and public sector entities were recently victimized as part of a slew of new Russian-based hacks.
The attacks were enabled due to vulnerabilities in MOVEitsoftware. According to the executive assistant director for cybersecurity for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Eric Goldstein, CISA “is providing support to several federal agencies that have experienced intrusions affecting their MOVEit applications,” while adding, “we (CISA) are working urgently to understand impacts and ensure timely remediation.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) was among the victims of the attacks. According to a spokesperson for the agency, “The Department (of Energy) has notified Congress and is working with law enforcement, CISA, and the affected entities to investigate the incident and mitigate impacts from the breach.”
The Russian ransomware outfit known as CLOP claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group gave victims a deadline of about 10 days ago to contact them regardingransom payments. They then listed some of their alleged victims on their dark web site. Among the alleged victims are Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Georgia’s state university system, British Airways, Shell Oil, and State governments in Minnesota and Illinois.
The software maker of the exploited MOVEit applications,Progress Software, recently discovered a second vulnerability in their code which they’re actively working to fix. “We have communicated with customers on the steps they need to take to further secure their environments and we have also taken MOVEit Cloud offline as we urgently work to patch the issue,” the company said in a statement.
Much like the SolarWinds hack, it will likely be months or maybe even years before we know the full extent of thiscurrent wave of Russian cyber-attacks, but this is only the latest example of the Biden administration’s failure rise to the challenges regarding America’s cyber defenses.
This year, the US was victimized by espionage operations carried out by a Vietnamese hacking group, a North Korean cybergang that targeted American cybersecurity research firms, and Chinese state-sponsored hackers that attacked“critical” cyber infrastructure in several industries, including government and communications organizations.
The US government must lead the world on the cyber issue. Especially as ransomware groups and hackers seem to be attacking anyone they can. Big-Tech has to do its part as well, especially as this year has seen a rise in “Malvertising” viaadvertising giant Google Ads. One thing the average citizencan do to stay safe online is exercising basic securitymeasures like using an ad-blocker to avoid malware laced advertising.
On the international level, the ongoing cyberwars necessitate an increase in cooperation. One promising recent development is the bi-partisan Abraham Accords Cybersecurity Cooperation Act. Born out of Donald Trump’s groudbreakingdiplomacy, this bill is a major step towards enhanced international communication to mitigate damages from largescale cyber-attacks.
Cybersecurity is yet another matter where the BidenAdministration has failed. Luckily for us, for the time being America has merely bent and not completely broken in the cybersphere. Whether or not we can hold the fort through what is expected to be a very volatile next year and a half ofJoe Biden remains to be seen.
Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, Editorial Director for Reactionary Times, and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by many of the most respected news organizations in the world.