A top official at the not-for-profit government organization Mitre warned that the United States has about three years to figure out a better way to protect critical infrastructure before China launches an all-out attack.
On Feb. 6, Charles Clancy, chief technology officer at Mitre, told legislators during a House hearing on water sector security that the threat of the Chinese Communist Party has escalated.
“The CCP’s primary targets are assessed to be energy, transportation, communications and water infrastructure with the intent to destabilize quality of life systems,” he said during his testimony.
Clancy’s statement aligns with recent findings from the Intelligence Community’s 2023 annual threat assessment, which warned that the CCP is readying its cyber soldiers to execute a widespread attack against U.S. critical infrastructure by 2027.
In an interview with Nextgov/FCW, Clancy emphasized that the threat landscape has changed.
He explained that current policy fixes for critical infrastructure protection are inadequate compared to the scale of the threat the nation is facing.
“We’re going to have to train and prepare to disconnect our operational technology systems from our information technology systems ahead of a major attack from China,” he added.
Clancy also weighed in on sanctions against cyber adversaries, saying that the U.S. government must be more aggressive in pursuing individual hacker groups and their infrastructure to deter future cyberattacks.
