Federal council warns Trump of cyber threats to infrastructure

he National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) published a draft report addressed to President Trump this week that found cyber threats to critical infrastructure pose an “existential threat” to national security and recommended “bold action” in response.

The NIAC, which is made up of industry officials and those from state and local governments involved in critical infrastructure, including former National Security Agency Deputy Director Richard Ledgett, strongly urged Trump to take action to protect energy-, communications- and financial-critical infrastructure.

“Mr. President, escalating cyber risks to America’s critical infrastructures present an existential threat to continuity of government, economic stability, social order, and national security,” the NIAC wrote. “U.S. companies find themselves on the front lines of a cyber war they are ill-equipped to win against nation-states intent on disrupting or destroying our critical infrastructure.”

The members wrote in the draft report that “bold action is needed to prevent the dire consequences of a catastrophic cyber attack on energy, communication, and financial infrastructures. The nation is not sufficiently organized to counter the aggressive tactics used by our adversaries to infiltrate, map, deny, disrupt, and destroy sensitive cyber systems in the private sector.”

In order to combat threats, the NIAC recommended that Trump establish a “Critical Infrastructure Command Center” to help share classified threat information between government agencies and companies at risk and to also make it a top priority of the intelligence community to gather and disseminate information on nation-states and other malicious actors trying to target U.S. critical infrastructure.