Whistleblower Edward Snowden believes that the current policies the U.S. has in place regarding offensive cyber security weaken its ability to protect computer networks and infrastructure from foreign cyber attacks.
In a recent interview with NOVA Next, Snowden said that the government wrongly promotes the development of offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, rather than strengthening its defense against cyber attacks.
He expressed concern that the government is creating a “system of incentives” for a new “class of Internet security researchers” who discover vulnerabilities and use them to their monetary advantage by selling them to secret government agencies rather than “disclosing them to the device manufacturers” to be fixed.
Snowden said U.S. policy should be geared toward making the internet safer and developing new defenses that could be shared with the private sector.
The interview is part of an upcoming PBS documentary on cyberwarfare.
