Are We Already in a Cyberwar? What the Government Isn’t Saying Out Loud

When most people hear the word war, they picture bombs, tanks, and soldiers on the ground. But in 2025, war has many fronts — and one of the most active, contested, and hidden is in cyberspace. The United States and its adversaries are locked in a persistent struggle that looks a lot like war, even if officials carefully avoid the word.

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 5 Takeaways in 30 Seconds

• America is already in a continuous cyber conflict with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
• Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, and Iranian groups are embedded in U.S. critical infrastructure.
• Disinformation is as much a weapon as malware — and domestic politics amplify it.
• Trump’s attacks on DOJ, FBI, and the military have weakened America’s defenses from within.

The best defenses are often invisible: hardening infrastructure, disrupting adversaries upstream, and preparing for the day of crisis.

Why Washington Won’t Call It a War

• Diplomatic stakes: Declaring cyberwar could trigger treaties or escalate conflicts.
• Secrecy: Revealing full details risks exposing intelligence methods.
• Panic control: Downplaying keeps markets steady and prevents public fear.

So officials talk about threats and espionage. But the effects — compromised systems, disrupted services, disinformation — look exactly like warfare.

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A Timeline of Escalation

• 2024–2025: Salt Typhoon — Chinese hackers infiltrated telecom networks and even the U.S. Army National Guard.
• March 2025: ODNI Threat Assessment — China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea flagged as the top cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure.
• May 2025: Supply-Chain Espionage — Long-term campaigns stealing intellectual property and embedding malware in suppliers.
• July 2025: Iran’s Cyber Ops — Targeted utilities, transport, and defense contractors.
• August 2025: NSA Advisory — Exposed Chinese APTs targeting telecom, government, and hospitality sectors.

This isn’t an occasional hack. It’s a drumbeat of nation-state campaigns against America’s backbone.

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Disinformation as a Weapon

The fight isn’t just in servers. It’s in our feeds. Russia, China, Iran, and others amplify divisive content. At the same time, domestic actors weaponize lies to split Americans apart.

The result: chaos, mistrust, and polarization — the perfect conditions for adversaries to exploit.

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The Internal Threat: Undermining Our Own Defenses

It isn’t only foreign adversaries who make America vulnerable.

• Donald Trump’s treatment of our institutions — from the Department of Justice to the FBI, the military, and intelligence services — has actively weakened the nation’s ability to respond to cyberwar and disinformation.
• Eroding trust in institutions: By attacking the FBI, DOJ, and military leadership, Trump encouraged Americans to doubt the very people tasked with defending them.
• Disabling counterterror and counterinsurgency work: His rhetoric and decisions have hollowed out the departments built after 9/11 to track extremist threats.
• Encouraging disinformation: By labeling facts as “fake news” while promoting conspiracy outlets, he blurred the line between reality and propaganda — exactly the condition adversaries like Russia and China exploit.
• Weaponizing government against critics: His efforts to punish opponents and shield loyalists stripped away the neutrality law enforcement and intelligence depend on.

Foreign adversaries don’t have to invent ways to divide us when one of our own leaders does it for them. America cannot defend itself against external cyberwar if it tolerates internal sabotage of its defenses.

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What America Should Do (Even If We Never Hear About It)

The U.S. can’t afford to wait for a crisis. Even if the public doesn’t always see it, there are concrete steps that should be happening quietly behind the scenes:

• Harden what matters most: Require strict baseline protections for energy grids, telecom, hospitals, and water systems. No more insecure defaults.
• Shift software responsibility: Push vendors to design secure systems from the start, and fund safer coding practices like Rust and Go for critical components.
• See faster, share faster: Make incident reporting usable and rapid, with feedback loops from CISA back to victims. Expand joint hunt teams inside critical networks.
• Disrupt adversaries upstream: Take down command-and-control servers, burn botnets, and sanction front companies — without always making headlines.
• Fortify the information space: Counter disinformation with prebunking, rapid advisories, and media literacy. Treat information like infrastructure.
• Prepare for the bad day: Run drills simulating simultaneous attacks on power, water, and 911 systems, and maintain tested backups in the cloud.
• Build the bench: Grow the cyber workforce through scholarships and fast-track clearances, moving talent between government and industry.

The best cyber victories are the ones the public never sees — because the disaster never happens.

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Why It Matters

We are in a continuous, low-level cyber conflict. The signs are clear:

• State actors embedded inside our infrastructure.
• Persistent espionage campaigns.
• Readiness to disrupt utilities and transport in a crisis.
• Disinformation aimed directly at our cohesion.
• Internal political sabotage of the very defenses meant to protect us.

Call it what you want — conflict, competition, or hybrid warfare. But the truth is simple: we are already living in a cyberwar.

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What You Can Do

• Watch CISA and NSA alerts.
• Use multi-factor authentication, strong passwords, and updates.
• Verify before sharing content online — disinformation thrives on speed.

The battle is here, whether we name it or not. The sooner we acknowledge it, the stronger we’ll be.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT