ODNI Unveils Strategy To Combat Cyber Intelligence Threats

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) unveiled its National Counterintelligence Strategy, presenting three main pillars:

1. Outmaneuver and constrain foreign intelligence entities: focusing on detecting, understanding and countering foreign intelligence threats, including cyber activities, through proactive and innovative measures.
2. Protect America’s strategic advantages: aiming to safeguard critical technology, economic security, democracy and infrastructure by countering foreign influence, espionage and supply chain vulnerabilities.
3. Invest in the future: emphasizing capabilities buildup, partnerships and resilience of the counterintelligence community to address current and future threats effectively.

“Today’s strategy is designed to drive integration, action and resources across the counterintelligence community to outmaneuver and constrain foreign intelligence entities, protect America’s strategic advantages, and invest in the future to meet tomorrow’s threats,” said ODNI National and Counterintelligence Security Center Director Michael Casey in a statement.

In terms of cyber counterintelligence, the strategy sets one of its goals in combating foreign intelligence activities.

“Although an increasing number of countries and non-state actors have these capabilities, we are most concerned about Russia, the PRC [People's Republic of China], Iran and North Korea. In addition, a growing number of commercial firms are flooding the market with high-quality cyber intrusion tools, expanding the pool of FIE [foreign intelligence entity] actors that can threaten our networks and people,” the document states.

Cyber operations of FIEs should be limited by building partnerships across various sectors, including federal, state and local governments, the private sector, academia, and international allies, to enhance information sharing and collaboration.

This also involves developing innovative tools and infrastructure to improve counterintelligence capabilities and conducting proactive, integrated operations to disrupt, degrade and deter FIE cyber threats, thereby increasing the cost and risk for these adversaries.

To effectively combat evolving intelligence threats, the U.S. counterintelligence (CI) community will invest in technology and personnel. This requires a strong CI workforce with expertise to address threats, clear roles within agencies to prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps, and foster collaboration across federal, state, local and private sectors.

The strategy emphasizes the need for innovative technologies, enhanced partnerships and integrated solutions to close CI gaps and strengthen the nation's resilience against foreign intelligence entities.

According to the document, critical infrastructure is another line of interest where adversarial action should be stopped.

“Develop and mature innovative analytic tools and tradecraft to better identify, understand and anticipate FIE operations and activities affecting U.S. critical infrastructure,” the document states.