Opening Statement to
House Committee on Homeland Security Hearing on Global Cyber Threats
delivered 22
January 2025, Washington, D.C.
[As prepared for delivery]
Good morning. Now that we are officially organized
as a Committee, I would like to welcome everybody to the 119th Congress.
We have a lot of work to do to support President Trump’s agenda and secure the
homeland. That is why cybersecurity is a top priority, and why it is the topic
of our first full committee hearing.
In today’s interconnected world, virtually every aspect of American life is
impacted by cybersecurity. From our nation’s healthcare system and water supply
to simple internet browsing, cyberspace is increasingly becoming a digital
battlefield. America’s adversaries use cyberspace to undermine our sovereignty
and threaten the services and infrastructure that Americans depend on.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, North Korea, Iran, and criminal
actors weaponize cyberspace to harm our nation. They are only getting more
sophisticated -- and more aggressive.
Right now, the PRC is burrowed into our infrastructure.
Let that sink in for a moment. China is pre-positioned in our infrastructure, we
know it, and they have been -- for years.
Should we enter into a conflict with the PRC, the Chinese Communist Party is
ready to shut down our essential services -- our communications, our energy grid,
our maritime ports, and our water systems, to name a few.
We cannot let this happen. The American economy, government, and military depend
upon the resilience of our networks and infrastructure.
It’s past time for us to get a step ahead of the Typhoons -- a list of actors that
seem to grow every day. We’ve played defense for too long, and now it’s time to
go on the offense.
To do this, we need prepared cyber professionals. I know that some of these
nation-state issues go beyond what our current cyber defenders can address. This
is why one of my top priorities this Congress is to pass my Cyber PIVOTT Act,
which cultivates the cyber workforce we need at scale. We passed it out of this
Committee unanimously last year, and this year, we hope to get it signed into
law.
We also need a coordinated, whole-of-government effort that can rapidly share
information with the private sector. Since the private sector owns and operates
most of the critical infrastructure in the United States, the collaboration of
the organizations our witnesses represent today is essential.
I look forward to hearing from our panel of witnesses today about how we can
improve public-private partnerships for cyber and critical infrastructure
issues.
So far, I’ve focused on one threat actor -- arguably the one that poses the
greatest risk to the United States in cyberspace and beyond. However, there are
many other threats that we must be prepared to address simultaneously.
For example, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has targeted our elections,
notably hacking the Trump campaign in the 2024 cycle. It has also repeatedly
tried to compromise U.S. water and wastewater systems. The intelligence
community indicates that Moscow uses cyber disruptions to influence the
decisions of countries like the United States. North Korea is a major culprit of
cybercrimes as well.
To devise strategies to address these challenges and threats in cyber space, we
must better understand them -- and that’s what we are doing here today.
Our witnesses will provide the insights we need to think critically about
tackling current and emerging cyber threats to our homeland. All witnesses are
private sector leaders -- three of whom bring key insights from their government
experience.
Thank you all for being here to set the scene for us as we dive into the 119th
Congress. I look forward to the discussion, and to a productive Congress of
enhancing our cybersecurity posture.
