Along with myriad other crises that have defined the Biden administration, the United States has also faced unprecedented cyberattacks over the past four years. While Trump will look to address Biden’s security failures at the border and abroad, he will also have to contend with mounting threats to the country’s cybersecurity infrastructure.
The nation saw a flurry of bad cybersecurity headlines just before the new year, with hackers ramping up their activities as Americans checked out for the holidays.
On December 30, the Treasury Department revealed that Chinese hackers had breached the department’s computer firewalls and stolen documents in what the agency described as a “major incident.” Just days later, The Washington Post reported that the Treasury Department was imposing sanctions on Chinese companies involved in hacking operations that “infiltrated around 260,000 internet-connected devices.”
Just a few weeks before that, a White House official shared that at least eight U.S. telecom firms had been impacted by a Chinese hacking campaign. According to The Associated Press, “The U.S. believes that the hackers were able to gain access to communications of senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures through the hack.”
Every day, Americans have also fallen victim to hacking operations. On December 30, the same day the Treasury Department revealed that it had been hacked, Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee announced that cybercriminals had released stolen files from RIBridges, a state program that manages Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. These files, containing beneficiary information, were posted on the dark web. McKee was uncertain about which specific files were posted, raising concerns about the potential sale of sensitive health and financial information.
Rhode Islanders are hardly alone. According to research by the University of Maryland, more than 2,200 cyberattacks occur each day in the United States, equating to nearly one attack every 39 seconds.
Two years ago, one in three Americans surveyed by Ipsos reported that they had been victims of online robbery or cybercrime. In 2024, 79 percent of the people polled in a multinational survey, which included Americans, expressed to the same pollster that their primary fear was being hacked.
Moreover, a report from IBM indicates that the United States had the highest average cost of data breaches in 2024 among the 16 countries studied. “The health, financial, industrial, technology, and energy sectors were primary targets, as all contribute to national defense,” one expert in the field told me.
In total, the number of attacks has risen 47 percent under Biden compared to Trump’s first administration. According to the HIPAA Journal, which specializes in health insurance coverage, the number of medical records exposed in cyberattacks surged to 160 million in 2023. In contrast, during Trump’s presidency, the most data hackers accessed was around 40 million records in 2020.
One of the main reasons for the uptick in attacks has been a lackluster response to them under the Biden administration. During a Senate hearing in early December, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies described the government’s reaction to cyberattacks, particularly from China, as “a stern lecture and a few strongly worded notes.”
Another witness at that hearing, James Mulvenon, Chief Intelligence Officer at Pamir Consulting, was more specific in his critique. As he explained, in 2022, Biden gutted National Security Presidential Memorandum-13 (NSPM-13), which President Trump had signed in 2018.
Mr. Mulvenon noted that Trump’s memorandum “for the first time lowered the threshold for authorizing offensive cyber operations.” Despite warnings from Republicans and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, which correctly stated that altering Trump’s directive would signal weakness and undermine the United States’ deterrence power, Biden chose to modify it.
“The current dynamic with China in cyberspace will not change unless a similar, and hopefully even more forward-leaning policy like NSPM-13 is enacted in the new administration,” Mulvenon testified.
While Americans wait for Trump to hopefully enact stronger cybersecurity policies, they can also take basic precautions to improve their “cyber hygiene.”
According to a cybersecurity expert I spoke with who advises the government, the most important thing internet users can do to protect themselves online is create strong login passwords that are unique for each site. He advised creating passwords that are at least 12 characters in length and changing them once a month to make tracking more difficult.
“One should have a dedicated device only for your banking, health insurance, and private email while using another device for social media and email for other non-official reasons, as well as all internet browsing,” he said. “This will make it harder for hackers to access personal data.”
He also said “cookies,” or data websites collect from visitors, should be cleared weekly.
These steps, he emphasized, are even more important with the advent of artificial intelligence, which is already leading to an explosion of online scams and hacking operations.
In an age where everything from saving for retirement to ordering dinner is done online, Americans’ personal information is more vulnerable than ever. Protecting it will take a combined effort of individual common sense and government policies to keep bad actors at bay.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
Four years of ruinous socialist policies does indeed have a cost. The American people should have never allowed the soft coup (if you don’t know what that is look it up) of 2020 to stand, but they did. Water under the bridge at this point, no one will likely ever be held accountable, and we just have to focus on undoing as much of the damage as possible.
There is a huge mess to dig through and clean up. President Trump will indeed have his hands full, but he is the only one who has a chance of getting a lot of it done. Everyone else in Washington, D.C. just talks endlessly about this or that and does absolutely nothing to fix anything. We need to support the POTUS against the pushback he will undoubtedly receive from multiple fronts, that prefer the status quo of managed decline for our nation.
The Democrat Party has been a destructive force operating within the United States for many decades and has gotten only more brazen and overt in pursuing its goals and objectives. It is hopeful that at least some additional Americans have finally realized that fact and won’t be stupid enough to turn around in some future election and return the party of destruction to power to finish their agenda.
Much of this article mentioned cyber attacks on government entities. What has occurred at an equality alarming rate is private companies data breaches. There is not a week that goes by, where I don’t get a letter from a company, telling me they had a data breach. It has become so common-place, they have started to send postcards….ridiculous.
I can tell you the main reason these data breaches occur. The majority of companies do not take Cyber-security seriously. They under-staff and under pay, what should be one of the most important departments in their companies.They leave themselves vulnerable to attacks, from their neglect.
I am so feed up with the frequent data breaches these companies allow, I’m ready to join a class-action suit to make them wake up and start making IT security a priority.
Question: AMAC, how many IT workers do you have working for you. Do you do enough to protect your members from Data breaches? Do you work with an outside company that monitors your cyber-security, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute?
I don’t understand why Democrats has forgotten their oath of office, to protect us and our country. Instead they are so busy attacking Pres. Trump who worked for us for free since he donated his salaries to Govt. agencies & his only concern is for our prosperity and security.
Reverse everything!
Cyber security, border security, social security, all in the capable hands of the wise and mighty government. Thank God voter opened one eye, incoming president will have his hands more than full. Lets hope come next election the other eye opens as well, there is no way this sty can be cleaned in a short time
I fear that, even with DJT’s efforts, our enemies will always be a step or two ahead of our cybersecurity efforts, especially since Joebama allowed our cyber defenses to tank, all the while letting a Chinese spy balloon traverse our airspace. And this “AI” stuff really has me concerned.
I have had so many data breaches of my personal data over the years, that I started a data base in Excel to keep a record of them. Those breaches include medical offices in my area, pension accounts, my email account with yahoo, Dell computers, AT&T, Equifax (yes, the credit bureau), government agencies, among others. One of the last hacks got my personal bank account number. I was using EFT to pay this company, but stopped that now, and I use a credit card. Too late….
A lot of my personal information was hacked through 3rd parties that store the information for other companies, or it was scooped up from companies that collect cookie data. Until companies are penalized/ prosecuted, etc for lax cyber security, this is not going to get any better.
According to my data base, I know of at least 14 hacks of companies, government agencies, etc, where my personal information was stolen. My data base goes back more than 10 years.
I have frozen my credit, and frozen my savings account with the bank. I cannot do anything about my checking account except change account numbers, which I am reluctant to do right now.
Any suggestions?
This scandalous lack of security should be more widely publicized, as I’m sure many people are oblivious to the threats. Is the DNC now synonymous with the CCP?