At a glance.
- Public-private partnerships at the heart of Ukraine’s cyberdefenses.
- US Navy issues cyber strategy.
- Digital Market Act could lead to big changes in Silicon Valley.
- Gonzalez v. Google and its potential impact on the American internet.
Public-private partnerships at the heart of Ukraine’s cyberdefenses.
In an interview with Nikkei Asia, Admiral Mike Rogers, former Commander of the US Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency discusses Ukraine’s cyber strategy defending itself during the Russian invasion. Currently serving as senior adviser at public relations firm Brunswick, Rogers says that just as Russia has stumbled in its physical attacks in Ukraine, it has underperformed in the cyber sphere, in part because Ukraine, in collaboration with Western partiers like the US, has been preparing for such a confrontation since the 2014 Russian invasion. “We have been partnering with Ukraine for the last eight years in developing cybersecurity capabilities,” Rogers explains. “We worked with them to help them build defensive capacity, assess their networks, assess Russian capabilities, and so on.” He notes that the US has encouraged the Ukrainian government to partner with the Ukrainian private sector, as well as US tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and CrowdStrike, to bolster its cyber defense forces. It’s this synergistic approach – harnessing the skills of the private, public, and international allies – that has given Ukraine the upper hand.
US Navy issues cyber strategy.
Christopher Cleary, the US Department of the Navy’s Principal Cyber Advisor, on Friday released its Cyberspace Superiority Vision (CSV). Based on three core principles – Secure, Survive, and Strike – the CSV offers guidelines for mitigating cyberattacks and developing the cyber capabilities to fight back. “The principles of secure, survive, and strike build an enduring advantage for the Department of the Navy and enable our force to prevail in competition, crisis, and conflict,” Cleary stated. Building on the Navy’s Chief Information Officer’s Information Superiority Vision, the CSV’s goal is to “modernize, innovate, and defend” the department’s cyber infrastructure in order to maintain maritime security and dominance.
Digital Market Act could lead to big changes in Silicon Valley.
The EU’s Digital Market Act (DMA) takes effect this week, and Wired offers an overview of how this groundbreaking legislation could shake things up for Big Tech. Gerard de Graaf, a veteran EU official has been stationed as the director of a new EU office in San Francisco, where he’ll be helping Silicon Valley understand the ramifications of the DMA. The aim of the new law is to facilitate competition, forcing larger companies to interact with smaller competitors, by preventing giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon from preferencing their own products. “If you have an iPhone, you should be able to download apps not just from the App Store but from other app stores or from the internet,” de Graaf explains. By the spring, EU officials will determine which companies will be categorized as “gatekeepers,” a special tier of approximately one dozen organizations that will be hit with the toughest rules. The gatekeepers will then have six months to come into compliance with the new restrictions. It’s likely the DMA, like the General Data Protection Regulation, will have repercussions that extend beyond the borders of the EU, creating a template for similar measures on a global scale.
Gonzalez v. Google and its potential impact on the American internet.
As we’ve previously noted, the US Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could have major repercussions for the way social media platforms operate. As the Wall Street Journal explains, the case concerns Section 230, a law that shields platforms like Facebook and Twitter from liability for content posted by their users. In Gonzalez v. Google, the plaintiffs allege the ISIS-linked murder of a woman in 2015 was motivated by terrorist videos recommended to users on YouTube. For platforms like the video-streaming giant, user-created content is their bread and butter, and if Section 230 is called into question, their whole business model could implode. The Biden administration and other lawmakers have pushed for changes to Section 230 and failed, but putting matters in the hands of the court could lead to a different outcome. Matt Schruers, president of trade group the Computer and Communications Industry Association, says, “I could foresee an outcome where the litigation and compliance risks stemming from an ill-considered decision are so great that many small firms exit the market.” The result, tech companies fear, could be that foreign-based platforms gain dominance, leaving the US behind.