USCYBERCOM Official: Persistent Operations Key to Addressing Cyberattack Impact on US Leadership

Emily Goldman, a senior strategist at the U.S. Cyber Command, said that cyberattacks of all levels have “strategically consequential effects” on the influence of the United States and its allies in the global community.

Speaking at the International Conference on Cyber Conflict in Estonia on Friday, Goldman said while NATO members agreed to treat an attack against one ally as an attack against all, the agreement is still “not dealing with the majority of this malicious activity below armed conflict.”

Goldman called for persistent operations amid expectations that cyberattacks are expected to continue in the future, The Record reported. 
 
She said the international community needs to create an environment where adversaries cannot sustain such operations by disrupting how they operate.

Since 2018, the U.S. has been advocating for “actively disrupting malicious cyber activity before it can affect the U.S. homeland.”

The U.S. has been a frequent target for hacking operations. In February, the FBI and the Department of Defense disclosed that they had disabled a botnet disseminated by Volt Typhoon, a China-backed group that targets critical infrastructure sectors in the country.