Summary
The Republican National Committee (RNC) allegedly hid a cyberattack by Chinese hackers from the FBI to avoid negative press during Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
According to journalist Alex Isenstadt’s upcoming book, Revenge, Microsoft alerted the RNC to the breach, which targeted GOP views on China-Taiwan relations.
The hack coincided with an Iranian-linked attack on Trump’s campaign. While China denies involvement, intelligence officials warn such breaches are common in U.S. elections.
The RNC and the White House have not commented on the allegations.
We really need to make all hacks mandatory disclosure. It’s just going to continue happening until companies have to start paying for it.
Mandatory disclosure to law enforcement within 7 calendar days for all companies and organizations. For all non-profit organizations, all political organizations and groups, and any business that provides a service to consumers; public disclosure with notice of actions taken to mitigate in the future, within 30 days. Resulting fines of 1% of total parent company/organization gross revenue, per day past the deadline. Resulting fines split between public education, healthcare, and transit.
If there are similar subsequent successful hacks within 5 years, fines multiply with each event. They either fix their issues, or pay for their incompetence and corner cutting. No business provides a service or product that cannot be replaced by someone else. If it’s an effective regulatory monopoly like say a utility, all relevant management (including any sort of board of directors or operations committee) requires replacement after multiple security failures.
Make it fucking hurt, because that’s all that these companies understand.