Companies Must Prepare for More Russian Cyber Activity, Experts Warn

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's virtual CIO Network Summit event on Tuesday, Rep. Jim Langevin (D., R.I.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he is taking an "all hands on deck approach" to prepare for possible cyber retaliation against the U.S. "We have to be realistic and understand that as we impose sanctions--we take actions--there could be blowback here," said Rep. Langevin. In preparing for possible cyberattacks, Rep. Langevin said, "private companies also have a role to play." He said they should be implementing testing procedures to back up and restore data, instituting multifactor authentication on devices connected to their networks, ensuring software is up-to-date and patching known vulnerabilities. Theresa Payton, founder and CEO of Fortalice Solutions and former CIO of the White House under President George W. Bush, said companies should consider locking accounts after two or three failed login attempts. "During challenging times such as these, the Russian operatives could be using password spraying attacks, recycling passwords from past password data dumps [and] using artificial intelligence" to access corporate networks, Ms. Payton said at the CIO Network Summit event.