John Kasich Quotes

We must hit them hard for interfering with our election, If we do not hit the Russians hard, we will be empowering them .... 2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress.

The two most capable nation state adversaries in the cyber domain are clearly Russia and, of course, China. And I do think Russia poses a huge threat in the way they have used the cyber domain. That, to me, by the way, is the big issue here, is Russian interference in our political process, in our election process. And that is an egregious act by them. And they will continue to do that and I think more aggressively than they have in the past. And I think it's something Americans, all American citizens need to be aware of.

We're well aware, and we have been for a long time, that there is a real threat from adversaries, state actors, non-state actors, to hack us, influence us, destroy stuff through cyber means. Because cyber threat has been understood for a while, it's longstanding, it's a concern.

I think it's a little premature to talk about response until we know exactly what happened, but we should know what happened. And we should know how to defend [against hackers attacks] ourselves without question.

We've always had to worry about the electrical grid and nuclear facilities, and they remain a concern; but cyber-terrorism, you know, which is a word that you hear more and more, I think is a reality.

This is an ongoing threat from a variety of sources around the world. And actually I think it works both ways. I'm not privy to it, but I think all of the various country that have the ability are invading each other's computers all the time. But we have to protect our data. It's very important.

The reality of today from a cyber security point of view - I think some of the top people predict that the next big war is fought on cyber security.

Russians are concerned by North Korea. I mean there's - this is getting kind of close to home for them. And so they're concerned. And I think certainly what we're going to start doing is rallying the troops again and say, ok, what do we need to do next?

I think cyber security, cyber warfare will be one of the biggest challenges facing the next president, because clearly we're facing at this point two different kinds of adversaries. There are the independent hacking groups that do it mostly for commercial reasons to try to steal information that they can use to make money.

In terms of my conversations with [Vladimir] Putin, these are conversations that took place before the election. As I indicated, there has been very clear proof that they have engaged in cyber attacks. This isn't new. It's not unique to Russia. There are a number of states where we've seen low-level cyber attacks and industrial espionage and, you know, other behavior that we think should be out of bounds.

We have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is - it is a huge problem.

The bare bones tools for a cyber-attack are to identify a vulnerability in the system you want to gain access to or you want to subvert or you want to deny, destroy, or degrade, and then to exploit it, which means to send codes, deliver code to that system somehow and get that code to that vulnerability, to that crack in their wall, jam it in there, and then have it execute.

The thing that has disturbed me most about the Russian hacking episode is - and the thing that surprised me most has not been the fact of Russian hacking. The cyber world is full of information gathering, you know, propaganda, et cetera. I have been concerned about the degree to which, in some circles, you've seen people suggest that Vladimir Putin has more credibility than the U.S. government. I think that's something new.

I think more to the point, these pivotal times means something other than a politician. I understand the economy. I understand the world. I have a lot of foreign policy experience. I understand bureaucracies. I understand technology, and I understand leadership.

I can tell you that I think America is safer today than it was on 9/11. But that doesn't mean that we don't have a long way to go.

It doesn't mean we're not going to be tough across the world, it doesn't mean that we're not going to always put America first in everything we do. But we have big problems in this world. And I don't think we can solve these big problems by making believe that people don't exist. They exist. We have to talk to people.

Although cyber attacks have caused billions of dollars in damage and affected the lives of millions, few if any can be characterised as acts of terrorism.

I hope that this [hacking] does not continue to be viewed purely through a partisan lens.I think there are Republicans as well as Democrats who are concerned about this.

Cyberspace is the battlefield of tomorrow... Instead of confronting us head-to-head on the traditional battlefield, adversaries will confront the U.S. at its point of least resistance- our information infrastructure.

In the future, the cyber threat will equal or even eclipse the terrorist threat.

I think we need to get to the bottom of it. And I think there should be an investigation [of hackers attacks] because in order to defend ourselves against other adversarial countries, we have to protect our information.

In a little while, I'd like to address one of the most important aspects of America's national security, and that's cyber security. To truly make America safe, we must make cyber security a major priority, which I don't believe we're doing right now, for both government and the private sector.

I think the foreign policy is really not Donald Trump administration concern. Like the Syria strike. I mean, it meant almost nothing. They hit an empty air base. Within a day, it was functioning again. Planes were flying off it. It was for a domestic show, you know - show what a tough guy I am; I'm not Barack Obama.

Putin is going to be considering the United States his number one enemy no matter who our president is - and no matter who's elected, that isn't going to change. I think Putin is loving the media saying he's got all this power, 'cause they're a Third World country outside of their military.

Today is just to the beginning of a long and overdue national discussion on how to protect ourselves from modern cyber crime and evolving national security threats and how to develop the cyber offense strategies necessary to gain a critical security edge in the 21st century. We need the edge, and ideally, a big one.