'Putin is on the inside now': Trump team doesn't consider Russia a cybersecurity threat

During former President Joe Biden's four years in the White House, he wasn't shy about describing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies in the Kremlin as a major cybersecurity threat to the United States. But President Donald Trump, in contrast, isn't nearly as critical of Putin.

The Guardian's Stephanie Kirchgaessner, in an article published on March 1, reports that "two recent incidents" point to the United States "no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat."

"The Trump Administration has publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against U.S. national security or critical infrastructure, marking a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments," Kirchgaessner explains. "The shift in policy could make the U.S. vulnerable to hacking attacks by Russia, experts warned, and appeared to reflect the warming of relations between Donald Trump and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin."

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Kirchgaessner notes that when Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the U.S. State Department, recently spoke at a United Nations gathering on cybersecurity, she mentioned Iran and the People's Republic of China but made "no mention of Russia in her remarks."

"In contrast to Franz's statement," Kirchgaessner observes, "representatives for U.S. allies in the European Union and the UK focused their remarks on the threat posed by Moscow, with the UK pointing out that Russia was using offensive and malicious cyberattacks against Ukraine alongside its illegal invasion."

The Guardian reporter also points out that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — "did not mention Russia" in a recent memo describing "new priorities for the agency."

A Guardian source described as someone "familiar with the matter" told the publication, "Russia and China are our biggest adversaries. With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected, and our adversaries know this. People are saying Russia is winning. Putin is on the inside now.'

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Read The Guardian's full article at this link.