{"id":224732,"date":"2026-03-17T16:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/17\/trump-administration-isnt-pushing-companies-to-conduct-cyber-offense-national-cyber-director-says\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T17:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:00:23","slug":"trump-administration-isnt-pushing-companies-to-conduct-cyber-offense-national-cyber-director-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/17\/trump-administration-isnt-pushing-companies-to-conduct-cyber-offense-national-cyber-director-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration isn\u2019t pushing companies to conduct cyber offense, national cyber director says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump administration isn\u2019t pushing companies to conduct cyber offense, national cyber director says<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/national-cyber-strategy-private-sector-offensive-operations-sean-cairncross\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-17 16:18:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: cyberscoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n

National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said Tuesday that the Trump administration isn\u2019t aspiring to enlist the private sector to conduct offensive cyber operations, but instead to help the government by keeping them abreast of the threats they\u2019re facing.<\/p>\n

The recently-released national cyber strategy talks about incentivizing companies to disrupt the networks of adversaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not talking about the private sector, industry or companies engaging in a cyber offensive campaign,\u201d Cairncross said at an event hosted by Auburn University\u2019s McCrary Institute. \u201cWhat I\u2019m talking about are the technical capabilities, the ability of our private sector to illuminate the battlefield from what they\u2019re seeing, to inform and share information so that the USG [U.S. government] can respond to get ahead of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of enabling U.S. companies to undertake disruptive or offensive campaigns against malicious hackers, or to at least aid in U.S. government offensive operations, has regained currency in some GOP circles in recent years. Some companies have shown an interest in doing so, especially if laws are changed to make it more viable.<\/p>\n

That trend coincides with growing calls from Trump administration officials \u2014 and now the release of the cybersecurity strategy \u2014 to go on the offense against hackers, although Cairncross emphasized again that the strategy pillar to \u201cshape adversary behavior\u201d isn\u2019t just about conducting cyber offensive campaigns, but to use other government mechanisms to put pressure on hackers, be they legal or diplomatic.<\/p>\n

The government can go about shaping the \u201crisk calculus\u201d \u201cin a more agile fashion\u201d with private sector help, he said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an enormous amount of capability on the private sector side, and now we have a spear from the United States government\u2026 we are looking for real partnership,\u201d Cairncross said.<\/p>\n

One way the U.S. government has sought to bring the fight to…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump administration isn\u2019t pushing companies to conduct cyber offense, national cyber director says https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/national-cyber-strategy-private-sector-offensive-operations-sean-cairncross\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":224733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2059988179.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-224732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224732"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224734,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224732\/revisions\/224734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}