On March 6th 2026 the Trump administration published a new cyber-strategy, a seven-page document that marks a significant departure from how America has approached cyberspace, pivoting firmly from defence to offence. It promises to "act swiftly, deliberately and proactively to disable cyber-threats to America" and to disrupt threats "before they breach our networks", implying pre-emptive strikes at their source. The Pentagon's Cyber Command has long embraced a "defend forward" doctrine, but the new strategy pursues it with greater zeal.
The administration encourages private firms to play a larger role in disrupting foreign threats. Officials insist this does not mean "hacking back"—a form of cyber-vigilante justice that is currently illegal—but some companies are interested. Google set up a "disruption unit" in the summer of 2025.
The strategy cites an operation in Venezuela in which cyber-tools supposedly left government forces "blind and uncomprehending" during a raid to capture Nicolás Maduro—probably an allusion to a reported cyber-attack that may have cut power to parts of Caracas. Israel is reported to have hacked into traffic cameras in Tehran, allowing it to track the movements of Ali Khamenei prior to his assassination.
Curiously, the strategy makes no explicit mention of China's vast hacking operations, Russia's increasingly aggressive cyber-sabotage in Europe, or North Korea's industrial-scale cyber-crime.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of the DHS, is in disarray. Trump has targeted the agency over its role in election security. Its acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, was reassigned on February 26th 2026. The NSA and Pentagon Cyber Command went without a Senate-confirmed leader for almost a year after Laura Loomer reportedly urged Trump to fire the incumbent; the new commander has no direct experience in cyber-operations. Ciaran Martin, a former head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre, argues that offensive strength cannot compensate for defensive weakness: "It's not a question of playing offence and defence at the same time. It's two quite different sports."
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