Ex-House intel chairman: US ‘not necessarily winning’ the cyber war

by Nikita Vladimirov - 02/19/17 7:00 AM ET

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) raised concerns Sunday about U.S. cybersecurity, warning that the country is “not necessarily winning.”

“We are in a cyber war in this country, and most Americans don’t know it. And we are not necessarily winning,” he said in an interview with John Catsimatidis that aired on AM 970 in New York.

“We have got huge challenges when it comes to cybersecurity … Hackers have been able to get into the uplinks and downlinks of our satellite systems, which means your GPS could go out and not come back on. They have been able to get into remote … driverless cars and slam on the brakes when they are going 55 to 60 mph,” the former lawmaker added.

{mosads}Rogers pointed out various cyber threats that the U.S. is currently facing, including from nation-states and international hacking organizations.

“They want to be able to punish America in anyway that they can: shut a company down, shut a bank down, shut your lights off … so the challenge is huge,” he said.

Rogers also speculated that the U.S. will face even more complex hurdles in the future.

“And it is getting more complicated as we are going to add about 50 billion things — called ‘The Internet of Things’ — everything from your refrigerator to your garage-door opener now is going to get connected to the Internet,” he said.

The former lawmaker also shared his personal experience when meeting various Russian officials in the past. According to Rogers, Russians “are not up to anything good” when it comes to their geopolitical gambits.

“The Russians took all of the actions that they saw President Barack Obama do — and however Americans took it was irrelevant to them — they looked at it as America is pulling back, they don’t want to be engaged in the world, this is our opportunity,” he said.

“And if you look at their behavior since that time, its been very, very aggressive,” Rogers added.

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