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US military hackers have conducted offensive operations in support of Ukraine, the head of US Cyber Command has told Sky News.
In an exclusive interview, General Paul Nakasone also explained how separate “hunt forward” operations were allowing the United States to search out foreign hackers and identify their tools before they were used against America.
Speaking in Tallinn, Estonia, the general, who is also director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told Sky News that he is concerned “every single day” about the risk of a Russian cyber attack targeting the US and said that the hunt forward activities were an effective way of protecting both America as well as allies.
General Nakasone confirmed for the first time that the US was conducting offensive hacking operations in support of Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
He told Sky News: “We’ve conducted a series of operations across the full spectrum; offensive, defensive, [and] information operations.”
The four star general did not detail the activities, but explained how they were lawful, conducted with complete civilian oversight of the military and through policy decided at the Department of Defence.
“My job is to provide a series of options to the secretary of defence and the president, and so that’s what I do,” he said. He declined to describe those options.
But he noted how in contrast to Russia, which conducts information operations by beginning with a lie, the US aims to strategically tell the truth.
“A classic example is in 2020, when we saw a series of different proxies, in this case troll farms that were starting to develop in Africa,” he said.
Cyber Command and the NSA shared this information with the FBI and also with CNN, providing “a flashlight that suddenly exposes this type of malicious behaviour”.
This strategic disclosure has been…
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Source : skynews
