The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Biography
Christopher (Chris) Krebs joined the Belfer Center in July 2021 as a non-resident Senior Fellow with the Center's Homeland Security Project and Cyber Project. He and former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos co-founded and head the Krebs Stamos Group, a cybersecurity consultancy.
Krebs is former Director of the federal Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
As the first director of CISA (previously the National Protection and Programs Directorate - NPPD), Krebs was responsible for standing up the nation’s first risk management-focused civilian agency. He was fired in November 2020 after CISA declared in a statement that the 2020 election was the most secure in America’s history.
Before becoming CISA Director, Krebs was Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and previously was Senior Counselor to the Secretary. Prior to joining DHS, he led Microsoft’s U.S. policy work on cybersecurity and technology risk issues.
Before Microsoft, Mr. Krebs advised industry and federal, state, and local government customers on a range of cybersecurity and risk management issues.
Krebs holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.
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