[9/6/16] President Obama expressed concern Monday that the United States is locked in a cyber arms race with Russia and other countries that could quickly escalate into war.
Speaking to reporters at the G-20 conference in Hangzhou, China, Obama admitted that he is worried about a cyber conflict between the two nations.
“We’re going to have enough problems in the cyberspace with non-state actors who are engaging in theft, and using the Internet for all kinds of illicit practices, and protecting our critical infrastructure and making sure that our financial systems are sound,” Obama said.
“What we cannot do is have a situation where this becomes the wild, Wild West where countries that have significant cyber capacity start engaging in unhealthy competition and conflict through these means,” Obama said.
China and India are other major players in cyber warfare. It is believed that China has the power to take down America’s power grid via a cyber attack.
“Look, we’re moving into a new era here where a number of countries have significant capacities. And, frankly, we’ve got more capacity than anybody, both offensively and defensively,” Obama warned. “But our goal is not to suddenly, in the cyber arena, duplicate a cycle of escalation that we saw when it comes to other arms races in the past, but rather to start instituting some norms so that everybody’s acting responsibly…CONTINUE READING