Experts see US’ putting Russia on cyberthreat list as witch-hunt

MOSCOW, Sep 19 (PRIME) -- The Pentagon’s updated cybersecurity strategy, the first one under the Donald Trump administration, proves the U.S.’ awareness of importance of the issue, but mentioning Russia among the core threats looks more like a “witch-hunt” in political interests or an effort to fish extra state money, experts told PRIME on Wednesday.

TV channel Fox News earlier reported that the Pentagon unveiled the new cybersecurity strategy, saying that the U.S. faces “an urgent and unacceptable risk” from “malicious cyber activities.”

A summary of the strategy obtained by Fox News said the U.S. has been “engaged in a long-term strategic competition with China and Russia,” but also named Iran and North Korea as nations using cyber warfare “to harm U.S. citizens and threaten U.S. interests.”

Denis Mateyev, head of computer security company ESET in Russia and the CIS, said, “The released excerpt is of a declarative nature and does not contain a plan of actions. In essence, it shows that importance of cybersecurity has been recognized since long ago on the political, military, public and social levels.”

Arseny Shcheltsin, head of the Russian Association of Cryptoindustry and Blockchain (RACIB), said the cybersecurity topic is convenient for exploitation in political interests.

“Promoted cyberattacks, meddling in elections, disinformation in the Internet are good pretexts to push through one’s political interests. They are linked to allocation of federal money on new highly-expensive projects and tools, another reason for planned sanctions. The U.S. is undergoing a large-scale shake-up in the sphere of state purchase, and the IT business tied to Russia will be on the line,” he said.

Yevgeny Lifshits, head of the Cybersafety Agency, said the U.S.’ list of cyberthreats is a “witch-hunt”.

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