Dive Brief:
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The incoming U.S. president can expect a cybercrisis of some variety within the first 100 days of his or her presidency, predicts Forrester, according to a CNBC report.
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Forrester’s new top cybersecurity risks for 2017 report projects the continuation of hostile foreign threats stemming from Russia and China, as well as threats from new actors such as North Korea and Iran.
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While foreign threats work to embarrass the new U.S. leader with leaked data about U.S. citizens, conflicts over privacy and security legislation could raise the stakes for America’s new leader domestically, the report predicts.
Dive Insight:
Forrester analyst Amy DeMartine, lead author of the report, told CNBC she predicts the battle over data protection and what data the government should have access to to protect U.S. citizens will escalate. "I can see the external and internal threats happening simultaneously — what a great way to disrupt an incoming president," she said.
Given recent cyberattacks at the DNC and Hillary Clinton headquarters, additional security breaches would not be surprising. DeMartine thinks foreign actors will work to make a statement that will undermine America’s new leader.
Last year, China and the U.S. signed a bilateral anti-hacking accord, including a pledge that neither country would knowingly carry out hacking for commercial advantages. But both China and Russia have been suspected in a growing number of recent hacking incidents.
In August, researchers suspected Russia was behind stolen hacking tools that appear to belong to the National Security Agency (NSA) and was auctioning the tools over the Internet. The U.S. government still suspects China was behind the massive breach of the federal Office of Personnel Management in 2015.
