U.S. military hackers have carried out offensive operations in support of Ukraine, the head of the U.S. cyber command told Sky News.
In an exclusive interview, General Paul Nakasone also explained how separate “forward hunting” operations allowed the United States to search for 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 day” about the risk of a Russian cyberattack targeting the US and said that hunting advanced activities was an effective way to protect both the United States and the Allies.
General Nakasone first confirmed that the United States was conducting offensive piracy operations in support of Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
He told Sky News: “We’ve done a lot of operations across the spectrum; offensive, defensive, [and] information operations “.
The four-star general did not detail the activities, but explained how they were lawful, carried out with full civilian oversight of the army and through a determined policy in the Department of Defense.
“My job is to offer a series of options to the Secretary of Defense and the President, and that’s what I do,” he said. He declined to describe these options.
But he noted that unlike Russia, which conducts intelligence operations beginning with a lie, the US is strategically trying to tell the truth.
“A classic example is 2020, when we saw a number of different proxies, in this case troll farms starting to develop in Africa,” he said.
Image: General Nakasone is also the director of the National Security Agency
Cyber Command and the NSA shared this information with the FBI as well as CNN, providing “a flashlight that suddenly exposes this type of malicious behavior.”
This strategic revelation has been unfolding since 2018, General Nakasone added, and has informed the Western response to the invasion of Ukraine.
“We had the opportunity to start talking about what the Russians were trying to do especially in our midterm elections. We saw it again in 2020, while we were talking about what the Russians and the Iranians would do, but that was in smaller scale.
“The ability for us to share this information, to be able to make sure that it is accurate, that it is timely and that it is actionable on a larger scale has been very, very powerful in this crisis,” he said.
The intriguing resistance of Ukraine
General Nakasone disagreed with commentators who suggested that the cyber aspects of the Russian assault on Ukraine had been exaggerated and praised the Kyiv government and defenders for their resistance.
“If you ask the Ukrainians, they will not say that it has been exaggerated. If you look at the destructive attacks and the disruptive attacks that have been found, you have written about it in terms of [satellite company] Viasat, this is something that has been going on, “he added.
Image: Viasat offices at the company’s headquarters in Carlsbad, California
The general continued: “And we have seen this in terms of the attack on their satellite systems, the ongoing clean-up attacks, the disruptive attacks on their government processes.
“This is a kind of piece that I think is sometimes missed by the public. It’s not like they haven’t been very busy, they’ve been incredibly busy. And I think, you know, their resilience is maybe the story that it’s more intriguing to all of us. “
Concern over Russian attacks on America
When asked what the risk of Russian attacks on the US was, General Nakasone said, “We are vigilant every day. Every day. I think about it all the time.”
“That’s why we’re working with a number of partners to make sure we avoid it, not only against the United States, but also against our allies,” he added.
General Nakasone had delivered a keynote address at CyCon, an international conference on cyber conflict, hosted by the NATO Center for Cooperative Cyber Defense Excellence in Tallinn, and praised partnerships between democratic states as a key strategic benefit.
Hunting forward, an activity developed under the leadership of General Nakasone, is a key aspect of Cyber Command associations. He is “so powerful … because we see our adversaries and expose their tools.”
Read more: The United States, the United Kingdom and the EU officially blame Russia for a cyberattack
Cyber command specialists have been deployed overseas to 16 more countries where they can seek intelligence from Allied computer networks, always by consensus and by invitation, General Nakasone said.
Cyber Command shares the intelligence they find with the host country is crucial to the operation of Hunt forward.
“If you’re an opponent and you just spend a lot of money on a tool and expect to use it easily in a number of different intrusions, it’s suddenly out and now it’s signed into a wide range of networks, and you’ve suddenly lost your ability to do it, “the general said.
In one of these forward hunting deployments, U.S. military hackers had been present in Ukraine very close to the date of the invasion.
“We went in December 2021 at the invitation of the Kyiv government to come and hunt with them. We were there for a period of almost 90 days,” the general said.
A spokesman confirmed that the team withdrew in February, along with other members of the Department of Defense, before the invasion.
Sky News will feature a full feature of our exclusive interview in the coming days.