David E. Sanger Quotes

The United States cannot wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Center.

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.

If we take as given that critical infrastructures are vulnerable to a cyber terrorist attack, then the question becomes whether there are actors with the capability and motivation to carry out such an operation.

Our enemies and our would-be enemies are working very hard at cyberterrorism... They're trying to level the playing field because they know they can't beat us tank for tank, plane for plane.

The Kremlin hacked our presidential election, is waging a cyberwar against our NATO allies, and is probing opportunities to use similar tactics against democracies worldwide. Why, then, are federal agencies, local and state governments, and millions of Americans unwittingly inviting this threat into their cyber networks and secure spaces?

The Russians hacked into the Illinois State Board of Elections. They got into the database.

We have spent so much time worrying about a 'cyber Pearl Harbor,'' the attack that takes out the power grid, that we have focused far too little on the subtle manipulation of data that can mean that no election, medical record, or self-driving car can be truly trusted.

Every day, we learn of more cyber attacks in our nation and around the world. In the United States, these attacks have the potential to destroy our military and economic security and, perhaps, impact the process we use to elect our leaders.

If we discover through a thorough and unbiased investigation that Russia has indeed attacked our electoral process directly with the intent to influencing the process, our response needs to be robust, rapid, and proportional. This will shape our relationship with Russia profoundly.

Americans cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Russian interference in our democracy. We need to get to the facts and learn lessons to prevent future misconduct by foreign governments.

The United States lost a bit of the moral high ground when it comes to warning the world of the danger of cyberattacks.

The problem with cyber weapons for a country like ours is the ability to control them.

The sooner we act, the sooner we can start turning the tables on cyberattackers.

Cyberespionage and cyberattack is exploding from our adversaries inside our country. We don't seem capable of stopping it.

In the 21st century, our adversaries will continue to use cyberattacks against us. We need to be prepared to defend our networks against this growing threat to our democracy, especially the most fundamental part of our political system: our elections.

All of our intelligence agencies, our Department of Defense, are all working to meet this threat. But it's a fast moving world; it's a place where offense is easier than defense, and keeping up with the next innovation in cyber-warfare is an enormous challenge.

Russia is a Tier 1 cyber power.

While the specifics of Russia's interference in the 2016 American election remain unclear, no one doubts that Moscow has built a robust technological arsenal for waging cyberattacks.

The 2016 election, I'm sure, wasn't the first one to be hacked; it was just the first one that was made public.

My view is that the cyber threat is bigger than any one government agency - or even the government itself. But the FBI brings a rare combination of scope and scale, experience, and tools to the mix. We investigate criminal activity like intrusions and cyber attacks, but we also investigate national security threats like foreign influence.

The big unknown is, at what point is a cyberattack so significant that it warrants a physical-world response.

The intensity of cyber conflict around the world is increasing, and the tools are becoming cheaper and more readily available.

In cyberspace, it is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold security for one's own country by sacrificing that of others.

Out of any country on the planet, I can't think of a country that has been more focused than Iran from the high levels of government on cyber, and that includes the United States.

I'm talking about the finding in October that is public now of 17 different intelligence agencies saying Russia tried to meddle with our elections.