White House cyber official advocates nimbler NATO to confront digital threats

White House official Anne Neuberger met with NATO officials in Rome to help craft plans to more rapidly respond to cyberthreats.

A top White House cyber official spoke at a NATO meeting in Rome Thursday, convening with allies to hone plans for rapidly responding to nation-state hacks and other digital threats.

Thursday’s meeting follows a June commitment from officials representing 30 NATO countries to significantly boost NATO’s cyber defenses as an alliance and at the national level.

“Just as NATO is prepared to respond to kinetic [battlefield] crises our allies face, we must also be prepared to respond to cyber crises,” said Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies at the White House. “We must be more nimble as an alliance … in providing direct, technical and necessary support if a country faces a significant disruptive attack.”

Nate Fick, the State Department’s first ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital diplomacy, was also at the meeting.

During her remarks, Neuberger said NATO’s July intervention on behalf of the Albanian government after Iranian-linked hackers launched a series of cyberattacks on multiple government websites was admirable. Still, she said NATO’s technical response to the cyberattacks was inadequate.

Neuberger won praise from allies for a February trip to Brussels and Warsaw during which time she met with officials from NATO, Poland and the Baltics about cyber deterrence in response to Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine a few weeks after the Feb. 1 visit.

Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine and the skill with which Ukraine has fended them off are a reminder for why NATO will benefit by investing in cyber resilience, Neuberger said Thursday. “Ukraine has in many cases been able to successfully defend against sophisticated cyberattacks due to the work that was done before the Russian invasion.”

Deterrence in cyberspace is possible — and ‘urgent’ — amid ‘alarming’ hybrid attacks, State cyber ambassador says

In an interview with CyberScoop, Nate Fick also discussed the structure of his office and regions of emphasis.

Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger on addressing the security threats of AI

Report: Biden should prioritize cyber capacity building for allies

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

• Dogged Russia-based botnet dismantled after 23-year run

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure