United States of America eSeries: 'Secure now or a victim later'

'Secure now or a victim later'

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June 8, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

'Secure now or a victim later'

The first major overseas trip of a new presidency is always a big deal. But it's hard to remember one quite so consequential as the weeklong journey to Europe on which Joe Biden will embark on Wednesday. The President will take part in his first G7 summit, in the UK, then go to NATO headquarters in Brussels to corral Western allies, before heading into a contentious summit with Vladimir Putin.

Biden is seeking to reestablish US leadership, which has been AWOL on the pandemic and climate change. He also hopes to bolster the world's democracies against the influence of Putin's Russia and Xi Jinping's China.

Biden is assured of a warm welcome — largely because he isn't Trump. Recall that in 2019 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were caught on camera privately mocking the previous US President. It was hardly surprising, since Trump spent his presidency attacking America's longtime allies and buttering up its traditional geopolitical foes. Allied leaders now are not looking to agree with the US on every issue. But they do badly need strategic stability, coherence and predictability from the world's most powerful nation.

Biden still has his work cut out for him, though. Europeans aren't necessarily convinced by the President's declarations that "America is back." There are fears that Trump or a populist, nationalist leader in his image will be back behind the Oval Office desk from January 2025, ready to rip up deals like the Paris climate accord.

Political uproar within the United States will also undermine Biden's message. As he warns that global democracy is under assault, Republican-led states back home are busily passing new laws making it harder to vote and easier to steal elections. And the world will not forget the refusal of Trump's supporters to recognize Biden's election victory, lies about fraud and the Capitol riot. In many ways, the US is fast becoming the kind of nation plagued by political corruption, disputed elections and fantastical propaganda that it once stood as a bulwark against.

Call off the search party. We finally found something that even Republicans and liberal Democrats can agree on: China.

It's quite conceivable that a bill passed by the Senate Tuesday could be the only major bipartisan venture of the Biden presidency. Designed to boost competition with Beijing's growing economic, strategic and scientific power, the US Innovation and Competition Act throws over $200 billion at American industry and tech and research sectors, and seeks to develop home-grown supply chains. In short, it "will supercharge American innovation and preserve our competitive edge for generations to come," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Majority leader said.

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'The difference between being secure now or a victim later'

Pay attention now, or be a victim later.

The message to America's corporate sector by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco could hardly be more stark following a wave of cyberattacks on basic US staples, targeting water, food, gasoline, transport and health care. The ransomware hackers — who demand companies pay bounties for the release of their computer systems — are highlighting the vulnerability of America's basic infrastructure.

The Biden administration and top lawmakers are sounding the alarm, taking steps to protect government data and cranking up pressure on Russia to rein in perpetrators who often operate from its soil. But a big part of the problem is that many of the services and critical building blocks of modern life are in the hands of private firms that have historically been loath to splash profits on network security.

Now Monaco says they have no choice. "The threat of severe ransomware attacks pose a clear and present danger to your organization, to your company, to your customers, to your shareholders, and to your long-term success," she said. "So, pay attention now, invest resources now. Failure to do so could be the difference between being secure now or a victim later."

One of the CEOs Monaco is trying to convince was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, explaining why he had decided to pay a ransom to hackers who caused a fuel panic last month by shutting down a pipeline from Texas to New Jersey. Colonial Pipeline boss Joseph Blount said he had paid up to get the gasoline flowing again because it would have taken days to figure out how hackers had compromised the firm's IT systems.

In a rare coup, the FBI managed to track down the ransom payment and retrieve more than $2 million in Bitcoin that Colonial had paid out. But Blount said that despite spending an average of $40 million a year on cybersecurity, Colonial simply didn't have the kind of defenses against ransomware that Monaco is pleading with companies to build.

'Montjoie! Saint-Denis!'

Source: Twitter/@AlexpLille

An unidentified man put the small French village of Tain-l'Hermitage on the map Tuesday when he reached out toward French President Emmanuel Macron at a meet and greet and slapped him across the face. "Montjoie! Saint-Denis!" the perpetrator shouted, invoking a medieval battle cry reportedly associated with far-right groups and French royalists.

It's easy for disgruntled members of the public to lash out in France, where the bain de foule is a political tradition -- leaders "bathe" in the crowd to mingle and shake hands. But public exposure in any context comes with risk. In February 2012, front-running French presidential candidate Francois Hollande was attacked onstage by a woman with a bag of flour while giving a speech in Paris.

And a double duck by then-President George W. Bush during a trip to Baghdad in 2008 became the stuff of legend, after an Iraqi journalist threw both shoes at him in protest of the US-led invasion. The journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, spent nine months in prison for the offense -- then used his newfound celebrity to run for office himself.

Thanks for reading.

On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden travels to the UK for the G7 summit. British Brexit minister David Frost meets European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic to discuss post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland. And Mongolia holds its presidential election.