14 DAY TRIAL // Present at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs in New York, Chris Rouland, founder of secretive cybersecurity company Endgame Systems, has urged US lawmakers to allow companies to hack back.
According to Forbes, Rouland highlighted the fact that in cyber war there is no deterrence. That’s why those who think of attacking US organizations need to know that they can be attacked themselves.
“Hacking back” is a fairly controversial topic, especially in light of the recent NSA revelations. However, the expert believes that such actions should not be illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as they are now.
Naval Academy Cybersecurity Law Professor Robert Clark has emphasized that currently it’s illegal even to delete your own data if you find it on an anonymous server. On the other hand, Rouland suggests some measures that go beyond simply deleting data. These include denial-of-service (DOS) attacks, and something he describes as “degradation of the network.”
In addition, ISPs could be part of these hack back operations. For instance, they can throttle a country’s Internet for a certain period. Interestingly, Rouland suggests that Internet providers might choose to play a role in this scheme, but they can also be forced to do it.
The expert says Endgame doesn’t engage in such cyberattacks, but US companies and government agencies should. Actually, some of them already do, but they should be allowed to do it legally.
So how should the US identify whom they shouldretaliate against? One solution, according to Rouland, is to plant false data that’s designed to contact its creator. This way, perpetrators could be accurately identified.
He has highlighted the fact that the US should follow the example of China, which is said to be stealing information from other countries to enhance its own capabilities.
“From what I’ve seen, we’re the only major nation state that does not use its national intelligence apparatus to advance its corporations. We’re certainly different from them and that’s what makes us Americans. But this is the new normal,” Rouland said, cited by Forbes.