A senate report released this week urges the US government to make sweeping changes in its approach to defending the country against cyber threats.

The report's 80+ recommendations include a creating a new "national cyber director" position, a larger cyber force, and a fund to help the government respond to cyberattacks.

The bipartisan committee behind the study was inspired by a similar one the US formed in the 1950s to devise its strategy for the Cold War.

"We want this to be the 9/11 Commission Report without the 9/11," Sen. Angus King, a committee co-chair, told Cyberscoop.

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The US cyber strategy needs some major improvements if the country hopes to defend itself against threats from China, Russia, and other adversaries, according to a report released this week by a bipartisan group of senators.

Among its 80+ recommendations are the creation of a "national cyber director" overseen by new congressional committees on cybersecurity, more personnel trained in cyber operations, and increased funding to ensure federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and Election Assistance Commission are equipped to carry out increasingly complicated missions.

"The U.S. government is currently not designed to act with the speed and agility necessary to defend the country in cyberspace," concluded the report, the result of a year-long study by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a group created by Congress in 2018.

"We want this to be the 9/11 Commission Report without the 9/11," Sen. Angus King, one of the commission's co-chairs, told Cyberscoop, adding that the group is "trying to urge and foment change without a catastrophic event."

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To accomplish that goal, the commission suggested the US adopt a "layered cyber deterrence" strategy. Broadly, that involves encouraging allies to promote responsible behavior in cyberspace, shoring up vulnerabilities in private and public networks that enemies could exploit, and being able to retaliate against attackers.

"China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all probed U.S. critical infrastructure with impunity," the report said, while globally connected networks allowed criminals to commit cyber theft and extremist groups to raise funds and recruit followers.

"American restraint was met with unchecked predation," the report said, advocating that the US take a more active role in deterring bad actors.

However, the report did not address some of the more controversial topics surrounding cybersecurity, like encryption — a frequent target of US Attorney General William Barr and others in law enforcement — and which offensive capabilities the US might be willing to give up to secure similar agreements from adversaries.

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission was modeled after President Dwight Eisenhower's Project Solarium, which was formed in the 1950s to help the US devise a new foreign policy strategy around the Cold War, showing that the US is fundamentally rethinking how it's approaching new digital battlegrounds as the nature of warfare evolves.