Rubio: Russia, China ‘Have Every Incentive’ to Have Criminals Do Cyberattacks for Them

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) stated that China and Russia “have every incentive” to solicit criminal organizations to carry out cyberattacks against the U.S. so they have plausible deniability, and China and Russia don’t clearly understand what America’s red lines are on cyberattacks.

Rubio said, “Well, I think we certainly have to have the option to retaliate in kind in a proportional way that sends a message about what our red lines are. I’m not sure yet that there is a clear understanding by either the Russians or the Chinese about what the American red lines are with regards to cyber intrusions. You pointed a moment ago to this Microsoft intrusion and there are others like it. We’re entering an era now where you’re not going to be able to attribute it to a nation-state even though they’re behind it. There is nothing that keeps a nation-state — and in fact, they have every incentive, like China or like Russia, to go to criminal networks and say, we want you guys to do this hack. If you do it, of course, we won’t arrest you. We’ll even let you keep the money you have. But if you get caught, there’s not attribution. You can’t say it’s the government, you could say it’s a criminal organization.”

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