Lars FischerLet me borrow from Bruce Schneier @Schneier_rss: ‘We don’t issue letters of marque on the high seas anymore; we shouldn’t do it in cyberspace.’ [1]
He has gotten struck by a sentence in the 2026 US Cyber Strategy (linked in [1]) which seems to imply that the White House (signed by DJT) is actually planning to somehow incentivize private companies to attack adversaries in the "cyberspace". (Sorry, I still cannot write the word "cyber" without flinching, I have Wieners "Cybernetics" in my bookshelf.) Which would (excuse the former digression, hope you are still following), as Schneier puts it, be "an incredibly dumb idea".
Incredibly dangerous as well, like handing everyone a gun, a blindfold and incentivizing they shot whenever they feel threatened or attacked from any direction. Cascades of hacks and hack-backs. Maybe the best thing would be if companies would outsource the "disruption of adversary networks" to the same hacker-for-hire, because they then might realize that they have contracts with both sides and hopefully just stop disrupting any of the two networks.
Plus, I assume, it would be illegal in most jurisdictions — including the current USA.
[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/04/is-hackback-official-us-cybersecurity-strategy.html
Is "Hackback" Official US Cybersecurity Strategy? - Schneier on Security
The 2026 US “Cyber Strategy for America” document is mostly the same thing we’ve seen out of the White House for over a decade, but with a more aggressive tone. But one sentence stood out: “We will unleash the private sector by creating incentives to identify and disrupt adversary networks and scale our national capabilities.” This sounds like a call for hackback: giving private companies permission to conduct offensive cyber operations. The Economist noticed (alternate link) this, too. I think this is an incredibly dumb idea: In warfare, the notion of counterattack is extremely powerful. Going after the enemy—its positions, its supply lines, its factories, its infrastructure—is an age-old military tactic. But in peacetime, we call it revenge, and consider it dangerous. Anyone accused of a crime deserves a fair trial. The accused has the right to defend himself, to face his accuser, to an attorney, and to be presumed innocent until proven guilty...