Conducted by John DeSimone, President, Cybersecurity, Intelligence and Services Division, Raytheon
Recorded on September 7, 2023, at the 14th Annual Billington CyberSecurity Summit.
In an interview with John DeSimone, President of Raytheon’s Cybersecurity, Intelligence and Services Division, at Billington CyberSecurity’s 14th Annual Summit, CIA’s Deputy Director, David Cohen, emphasized the importance of cyber to CIA’s mission, provided frank assessments of key cyber adversaries, emphasized the importance of collection capabilities, and talked about the continual challenges of leveraging intelligence while protecting its sources. Cohen shared the fact that five CIA officials were presenting at the Billington Summit and brought home the point that “CIA does not get out much,” to emphasize the growing role that cyber plays in the day-to-day operations at Langley.
In terms of how CIA was embracing cyber, Cohen highlighted that CIA had—over the past six years—created a new Directorate, the Directorate of Digital Innovation; added a Chief Technology Officer and built a new mission center, the Transnational and Technical Mission Center (T2MC), all efforts devoted to understanding technology and cyber’s roles in national security threats. As part of this effort, Cohen highlighted that the CIA is taking a more active role in engaging with the private sector to help the Agency accomplish its mission. He emphasized that while foreign countries such as China and its great power competition drive continue to be the pacing threats of concern for his organization, technology and cyber are increasingly the venues where these threats are carried out.
As an example of CIA’s growing cyber prowess, Cohen clearly articulated his Agency’s view of how cyber has been leveraged as part of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He highlighted the Agency’s initial surprise about Russia’s ineffective use of cyber during the initial phase of the invasion. He pointed to effective Ukraine preparation in the lead up to the invasion, the impact of US Government and private company assistance, and the ill-planned and executed invasion by Russia, itself as being major contributing factors. As the war drags on, Cohen said that the CIA continues to monitor Russia’s increasing cyber effort, capability and focus directed at Ukraine and reminded everyone that there was still a long way to go before the outcome would be decided. Cohen also highlighted that the story of cyber in this conflict is two-sided since Russia had also been the target of many successful cyberattacks.
In terms of the longer-term view, Cohen emphasized that his Agency still considered China as the most consistent, persistent, and capable cyber adversary. He pointed to an all-out systematic effort by China to leverage cyber to conduct a wide range of activities to include IP and PII theft, espionage, helping to prepare the Chinese military in the event of heightened aggression, and information control to push down dissent. He highlighted that it is the job of the CIA to make sense of adversaries, such as China’s use of cyber, leveraging its collection and strategic analytical capabilities. He pointed to CIA capabilities that make them uniquely positioned to garner this understanding to include using cyber and technical collection operations, and “blended operations,” that leverage a combination of technology and humans to provide insights.
Cohen also took the time to highlight the importance of the 702 electronic eavesdropping program currently being debated in Congress as it is up for renewal. The program allows the Intelligence Community to obtain data on foreign people living overseas who use US telecommunication providers to communicate. This collection capability fills in key gaps and Cohen pointed to several successes where the program had been impactful. This included helping verify ransomware operators working against US entities, helping to identify foreign governments evading US sanctions, locating terrorists to take off the battlefield, and helping to identify supply chains of fentanyl to enable law enforcement to take action. Most of the impact as it relates to the CIA is behind the scenes.
Cyber Workforce: The Importance of Technical Talent
On the question of talent, Cohen agreed that technical talent was at a real premium for everyone. He did think the CIA had some comparative advantages to others when it came to attracting digital and technical talent; professionals that he cited represented almost a third of the CIA’s entire workforce. First, he highlighted the fact that the CIA offers individuals incredible work opportunities to make a difference and that the work is incredibly interesting. “We can offer work where in any other case you might end up going to jail for…“ Cohen posited. He also pointed to recent CIA initiatives to leverage incentive pay for technical officers, and its Technical Fellowship program that provides CIA officers to spend time at select private sector companies, and private sector individual internships to work inside the Agency.
When DeSimone asked about where intelligence sharing stood in relevance to providing CIA sources and methods, Cohen was honest in saying that this continues to be an ever-constant effort to calibrate the right balance. He pointed to decades of Presidential decisions to leverage intelligence for strategic advantage and lauded the recent administration’s efforts to use intelligence in the lead up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He highlighted how it had taken away Putin’s ability to falsely blame Ukraine for its involvement and for helping to build a strong coalition in opposition to Russian aggression. Overall, Cohen showcased a CIA that was embracing technology, finding ways to engage more with the private sector, and leveraging technology to help keep the US more secure.
Fireside Discussion
Cyber Threat in Context with World Events: A Fireside chat with CIA’s Deputy Director
Recorded on September 7, 2023, at the 14th Annual Billington CyberSecurity Summit.
To view the entire Fireside discussion, please click here.