Threat Assessment, Cybercrime Report Highlight Risks
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released its annual threat assessment, which provides a public window into national security risks.
The threat assessment says the United States “faces an increasingly fragile global order strained by accelerating strategic competition among major powers, more intense and unpredictable transnational challenges, and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications.”
Threats from state actors include “an ambitious but anxious China,” “a confrontational Russia,” and threats from regional powers such as Iran, which is blamed for fueling the Gaza crisis.
The report signaled out a host of concerns including China’s regional and global activities, cyber-attacks, technology and economic espionage, and that China “may attempt to influence the U.S. elections in 2024 at some level because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify U.S. societal divisions.”
Many of the same concerns were voiced about Russia, with the added concerns about Russia ramping up long-range strike weapons and other munitions to sustain a long high-intensity war.
The report noted that many of the conflicts, especially Gaza, destabilized relationships between allies and may lead to spillover effects.
“The world that emerges from this tumultuous period will be shaped by whoever offers the most persuasive arguments for how the world should be governed, how societies should be organized, and which systems are most effective at advancing economic growth and providing benefits for more people,” stated the report.
In addition to state concerns, the report mentioned a host of other worries including climate change and environmental disasters, migration, health security, and transnational crime.
FBI Cybercrime Report
The ODNI report comes on the heels of an FBI report on cybercrime, which is also a major risk factor.
The FBI says cybercrime rose 22 percent in 2023, resulting at least $12.5 billion in losses, although the actual number may be much higher.
Investment fraud was the most common form of cybercrime, resulting in losses of more than $4.5 billion, and much of that was tied to cryptocurrency. Investment fraud is when a scammer promises a huge return in exchange for upfront money from the victim.
The second most common form was business e-mail compromise (BEC) schemes, with $2.9 billion in losses. That’s when a scammer tries to hijack the e-mail account of a high-ranking executive or impersonates them through a spoofed email account, to wire them a large sum of money.
Meanwhile, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), says government facilities were the third most targeted infrastructure sector by ransomware attacks in 2023.
Only healthcare and manufacturing centers were targeted more often.
And while U.S. officials are working with global counterparts to take a stand against ransom payments, no framework has been agreed to yet.
“The FBI does not encourage paying a ransom to criminal actors. Paying a ransom may embolden adversaries to target additional organizations, encourage other criminal actors to engage in the distribution of ransomware, and/or fund illicit activities. Paying the ransom also does not guarantee that an entity’s files will be recovered,” said IC3.