Representative Eli Crane (R-AZ) demanded accountability for the failure to prevent recent cyberattacks on American infrastructure in a recent House Homeland Security hearing, saying it was "one of the things that the American people are so frustrated about with the federal government."
Rep. Crane began his five minutes of questioning by pointing out the various instances of Chinese cyberattacks against the United States, quoting former FBI Director Christopher Wray in saying that "Chinese hackers are positioned on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real world harm to American citizens and communities if and when China decides the time has come to strike."
As a result, he said that his constituents often ask him "why nobody in the federal government [is] ever held accountable for their failures," noting that CrowdStrike's senior vice president of Counter Adversary Operations Adam Meyers did take accountability for failures to prevent cyberattacks.
"And that is one of the things that the American people are so frustrated about with the federal government. Nobody ever gets accountable. Rarely does anybody take any ownership of their failures," Rep. Crane continued, asking Meyers if he would like to see "some of [his] counterparts from the federal government" take ownership of their own failure.
Meyers replied that he "would like to see us move to a position where we are able to stop these things before they happen," which the Arizona Congressman took as a "no."
Crane finally turned to senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Mark Montgomery (Rear Admiral, Ret.), asking him why cybersecurity has been lacking compared to other forms of security, saying that if conventional explosives were placed on infrastructure by foreign actors, it would be an act of war.
Montgomery replied that "we have seen cyber as a non-military tool, and we just saw it as a nuisance and criminal actor tool, and that has dampened our response."
However, Montgomery suggested that there is an "attitudinal change" regarding cyberattacks, and he was hopeful that "on a bipartisan basis going forward, we can see that we need to go on the offensive and hold a country that does this kind of operational preparation of the battlefield against the United States accountable for their actions."
