Investigate Russian Hacking for Security, Not Politics (and get on with governing)

Our national security depends on cyber security, and Russian hacking threatens those defenses. Every day that I come to work, I see an erosion of traditional power structures at the hands of increasing cyber threats. The hacking of Yahoo by Russian operatives and the DNC are two such examples that have potentially shifted the balance of power from our marketplace and political sphere into the hands of Vladimir Putin, Russian cyber criminals and anyone piggybacking on their technology. Now that Roger Stone, an administration advisor, has admitted to contact with the DNC hacker (Guccifer 2.0), the ties are too direct to ignore. But we shouldn’t be doing this for purely political reasons, we should be doing it to clear our President and his administration of wrongdoing so that they can go on about governing the country and implementing their vision.

If we don’t investigate the potential Russian hacking of the DNC with a thoroughness similar or better than the Yahoo hack, we are as much as admitting defeat in the cyber realm and simultaneously suggesting a coverup for political expediency. This isn’t about a single politician, this is about an entire political system. Cyber IS the new warfare, and we as a nation can acknowledge it now or after it is generally too late (which is what most corporations do). We don’t just need to get to the bottom of administration involvement, we need to get to the bottom of how Russian has inserted itself firmly in the midst of our democracy via hacking, trolling and kompromat (a Russian term for compromised materials, like hacked emails and tax records).

Here are my recommendations for proceeding to have a neutral investigation of the charges so that we can clear our President and move on to discovering the source or our weakness:

Name a bipartisan select committee to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of our presidential election and President Trump’s ties to Russia. As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant, and I’m certain that the administration has nothing to hide. But doing nothing sends exactly the opposite message – one of coverups and collusion for the sake of an election.
Since both Intelligence Committee Chairmen, Senator Burr and Representative Nunes, have close ties to President Trump, their involvement gives the appearance of bias. Taking a page from the book of Attorney General Sessions, both should recuse themselves from the investigation to eliminate all accusations of impropriety.
Appoint a well-respected Republican to chair the investigation so that it will be neutral, aggressive and fair. This is the only way to quiet the suspicion of corruption. Again, since the administration has nothing to fear, this is the only way to make the findings credible. To have colluded with Russia in any way would have been political suicide, so let’s prove this conversation false once and for all.
As part of it’s process, the committee would be wise to review Trump’s tax returns (in a confidential, non-public setting) to dispel any beliefs about his business or financial ties to Russia (of which he has assured us there are none) and extinguish two myths with a single stroke.
Commission an external, forensic cyber-penetration test to determine where the weaknesses lie within our cyber security so that loopholes can be closed before the next attack. This MUST be an external audit because there is too much at stake to leave this to governmental IT teams just trying to keep their jobs. Like students grading their own papers without oversight, unscrutinized self-assessments are necessarily faulty assessments.

The end game of this investigation should be apolitical and focused on righting the cyber weaknesses inherent in our national cyber infrastructure.

John Sileo is the award-winning author of Privacy Means Profit (Wiley & Sons), a cyber security expert and a keynote speaker on all topics involving cyber security training. Contact him directly here.

Posted by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo in Cyber Data Security and tagged Cyber Security, DNC Hack, Guccifer 2.0, Investigation, Russian Hacking, Trump.