Trump makes cyberwarfare an official priority for new White House

U.S. President Donald Trump will make cyberwarfarea "priority" in the fight against ISIS and other terrorist organizations, the new administration revealed on Friday.

The White House website was updated shortly after President Trump's inauguration offering littleinsightinto the government's plans, but the clearest official indication yet that the government is actively engaged in digital attacks.

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For example, under the section titled America First Foreign Policy,the government calls defeating ISIS and other terroist groups "our highest priority," and says that the U.S. will "engage in cyberwarfare to disrupt and disable propaganda and recruiting" in collaboration withinternational partners.

Under another section, Making Our Military Strong Again, cyberwarfare is mentioned too.

"Cyberwarfare is an emerging battlefield, and we must take every measure to safeguard our national security secrets and systems," the page reads, adding that the government"will make it a priority to develop defensive and offensive cyber capabilities at our U.S. Cyber Command, and recruit the best and brightest Americans to serve in this crucial area."

President Trumphad previously said in October thatcybersecuritywould be "an immediate and top priority" if elected.

Past efforts shrouded in secrecy

Former president Barack Obama's administrationwas often reticent to discuss the U.S.' offensive and defensive capabilities in the digital world, and U.S. senators expressed frustration last yearthat the previous government did not have a moreclear or coherentcyberwarfareplan.

It took the governmentyears to admitthat it was behind the Stuxnet virus used to sabotage uranium enrichment facilities in Iran, and has provided little insight into what U.S. government agencies do when they discover security flaws in widely-used software flaws that could be exploited in a similar manner to Stuxnet, by boththe U.S. or its adversaries.

Towards the end of former president Obama's tenure, however, the government began to speak more openly about its efforts, such as plans to use weaponizedmalware in its fight against the Islamic State but even then, only via anonymous officials.

It remains to be seen what specific measures President Trump who spoke vaguely about his own plans during the election campaign will enact.

"As a deterrent against attacks on our critical resources, the United States must possess the unquestioned capacity to launch crippling cyber counter-attacks," he told the crowd at rally in Virginia last October."This is the warfare of the future, America's dominance in this arena must be unquestioned."

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