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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Most Americans across the party have serious concerns about cyberattacks on US computer systems, and Chinese and Russia as major threats according to a new survey.
A survey by the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 9 in 10 Americans are at least slightly concerned about hacking involving their personal information, financial institutions, government agencies, or certain public services. About two-thirds say they are very or extremely worried.
Roughly three-quarters say the Chinese and Russian governments are major threats to the US government’s cybersecurity, and at least half see the Iranian government and non-governmental organizations as threatening.
Broad consensus underscores the growing impact of cyberattacks in an increasingly connected world, and could amplify efforts by President Biden and lawmakers to force critical industries to strengthen their cyber defenses and enforce reporting requirements for companies that are attacked. The survey comes amid a wave of high-profile ransomware attacks and cyber-espionage campaigns last year that compromised sensitive government records and led to the shutdown of operations of energy companies, hospitals, schools and others.
“It’s pretty rare to find issues these days that the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats see as a problem,” said David Sterrett, a senior research scientist at the AP-NORC Center.
Biden has made cybersecurity a hot topic in his youth administration, and federal lawmakers are considering legislation that will strengthen both public and private cyber defenses.
Michael Daniel, CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance and a former senior cybersecurity official during the Obama administration, said the survey showed that the public is certainly aware of the online threats that cybersecurity experts have been focusing on for years.
“We don’t need to raise much more awareness,” he said.
The boom in the last year of ransomware, where cybercriminals encrypt an organization’s data and then demand payment to decrypt it, highlighted how extortionist hacker gangs can disrupt the economy and put lives and livelihoods at risk.
One of the biggest repercussions cyber incidents this year was a ransomware attack on the company that owns the country’s largest fuel pipeline in May, causing gas shortages along the East Coast. A few weeks later, a ransomware attack on the world’s largest meat processing company disrupted production worldwide.
Victims of ransomware attacks range from major US agencies and Fortune 500 companies to small organizations like Leonardtown, Maryland, which was one of hundreds of organizations worldwide affected when software company Kaseya was hit by ransomware on the Fourth of July weekend.
“We got very lucky in the end but it certainly opened our eyes that it could happen to anyone,” said town manager Laschelle McKay. He said Leonardtown’s IT provider was able to restore the town’s network and files a few days later.
The criminal organizations that dominate the ransomware business mostly speak Russian and go with near impunity, except in Russia or its allies. The US government also blamed Russian spies for a massive breach of US government agencies known as the SolarWinds hack;
China has also been active. In July, the Biden administration formally blamed China for a major hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software, alleging that criminal hackers linked to the Chinese government had carried out ransomware attacks and other illegal cyber operations.
“The amount of Chinese cyber actors dwarfs the rest of the world together,” Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, said at a recent conference. “The elite in this group is truly elite. This is the law of large numbers.”
Both Russia and China denied any wrongdoing.
Older adults are much more likely to view Russia and China as serious threats. The vast majority of adults over 60 say the Russian and Chinese governments are a major threat, but only half of those under 30 agree.
Democrats – 79% – are slightly more likely than Republicans – 70% – to say the Russian government is a major threat. Former President Donald Trump, a Republican, has routinely downplayed Russian aggression. In his initial comments after the SolarWinds hack was discovered in December, Trump contradicted the secretary of state and other senior officials and suggested, without proof, that China was behind the campaign.
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The AP-NORC survey of 1,071 adults was conducted September 9-13 using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Omnibus tool designed to represent the US population. The margin of sampling error for all participants is plus or minus 3.9 points.
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