The U.S. needs to “start going on offense” to impose more significant consequences in response to cyberattacks, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) argued, following a massive Chinese hack targeting U.S. telecommunications companies.
The Chinese-affiliated group known as Salt Typhoon hacked telecommunication providers earlier this year and targeted President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and several others.
Waltz, whom Trump has tapped to be his national security adviser, provided his insight into how the incoming administration could respond to the attack and other similar cyberattacks during an appearance on CBS News’s Face The Nation.
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“We need to start going on offense and start imposing, I think, higher costs and consequences to private actors and nation-state actors that continue to steal our data, that continue to spy on us, and that even worse, with the Volt Typhoon penetration, that are literally putting cyber time bombs on our infrastructure, our water systems, our grids, even our ports,” he explained. “That is wholly unacceptable, and I think we need to take a much stronger stance.”
Waltz declined to say whether the new administration would pursue sanctions over cyberattacks, though he said they would “look at” pursuing “a different approach to cyber.”
“We need to start changing behaviors on the other side, rather than just constantly having this kind of escalation of their offense and our defense,” he added.
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Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (FL-R), called the hacks “the most disturbing and widespread incursion into our telecommunications systems in the history of the world.”
Rubio is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the chairman of the committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) previously called the attack the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history.”