FBI Director Christopher Wray appeared before a House Appropriations Committee budget hearing Thursday and claimed that Beijing has stolen more personal and corporate data from the U.S. than any other nation, and that their vast ranks of internet spies hugely outnumber the FBI’s forces:
Today’s cyber threats are more pervasive, hit a wider variety of victims, and carry the potential for greater damage than ever before. You take China. A key part of the Chinese government’s multi-pronged strategy to lie, to cheat and to steal their way to surpassing us as the global superpower is cyber.
The director went on to explain the scope of the problem:
The scale of the Chinese cyber threat is unparalleled. They’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined and have stolen more of our personal and corporate data than all other nations—big or small—combined.
To give you a sense of what we’re up against, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat—on nothing but China—Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.
At today's House Appropriations Committee hearing, #FBI Director Christopher Wray reiterated that "the scale of the Chinese cyber threat is unparalleled" and that "they’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined." pic.twitter.com/hKRvt3Eeh4
— FBI (@FBI) April 27, 2023
Wray requested over $63 million in funding for nearly 197 more cyber positions at the FBI.
My question: if the threat is so serious, why are we sending over $80 billion to the IRS under the Inflation Reduction Act so they can hire over 20,000 new staffers in the next two years? How about we take some of that money and give it to our cyber programs? Just a thought.
Watch Wray’s testimony:
The FBI chief continued, explaining that the Chinese Communist Party is the biggest—but not the only—threat to our digital interests:
But of course, China is not the only challenge in cyberspace—not even close. We’re investigating over 100 different ransomware variants, each variant with scores of victims, as well as a host of other novel threats posed by both cyber criminals and nation state actors.
So in addition to China, countries like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
It is getting more and more challenging to discern where the nation state threat ends and the cyber criminal threat begins.
He went on to that the U.S. has seen cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, hospitals, schools, 9-11 call centers, and more; plus, the attacks aren’t just happening in big cities—they’re happening in small communities too.
Wray described what the Bureau would do with the funding he’s requesting:
We will put those critical resources towards ensuring the FBI remains the world’s premier cyber investigative agency by taking the fight to our adversaries through joint sequenced operations and rapid information sharing with the private sector. By building out our model cyber squads, each tackling multiple threats in more field offices, placing investigators, analysts and other key professionals close to the victims that need us. And by providing our workforce with critical cutting edge training.
Our opponents in this space are relentless and we need your help to ensure that we’ve got the resources to keep responding in kind.
The CCP has definitely grown more aggressive under the Biden administration, sending spy balloons over the American continent and setting up their own police stations in our cities. Although the FBI under Director Wray and his boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, has proven to have become a hyper-politicized agency, it seems like they’re playing it pretty straight on this one. China is a severe threat to our cyber security, and we better take it seriously.
If we just took a little of that IRA money…
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