Redazione RHC : 30 August 2025 13:57
Google is poised to adopt a more proactive stance to protect itself and potentially other U.S. organizations from cyberattacks, with the company suggesting it may assume the role of attacker in the digital realm.
Google plans to form a “proactive countermeasures team” to combat cybercriminals in the coming months, said Sandra Joyce, vice president of the Google Threat Intelligence Group. “At the Google Threat Intelligence Group, we are proactively identifying opportunities to disrupt campaigns or operations. We will need to shift from a reactive to a proactive posture if we want to make a difference right now.”
This was stated during an event that led to the release of a report titled “To Hack or Not to Hack Back? That Is the Question… or Is It?.”
The document discusses whether the U.S. government should authorize private companies to conduct offensive cyber attacks, whether off-grid influence can effectively deter adversaries, or whether resources should be focused on improving cyber defenses.
In July, the US Congress passed the “Big Beautiful Bill”, which, among other things, allocates $1 billion for offensive cyber operations. This doesn’t mean companies like Google will start hacking assets overnight, but it reflects the future direction of US policy on this issue, at least as far as the current administration is concerned.
And on August 15, a draft of the “Fraud Farm Letters of Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025” was introduced, which gives the head of state the right to “issue letters of marque and reprisals for acts of aggression against the United States committed by a member of a criminal organization or any conspirator associated with an organization engaged in cybercrime.“
In the days of sailing, letters of marque were documents authorizing private ships to engage in piracy on behalf of the state; reprisals were coercive measures of a political or economic nature taken by one state in response to the illegal actions of another—these measures are now called sanctions.
In this way, US authorities are signaling their readiness to take extreme measures to deter cybercriminals from other countries from attacking American organizations. The initiative has not yet taken any concrete form.
Due to the recent attacks by the ShinyHunters cybergang, which compromised Google’s infrastructure, the company had to reset the passwords of as many as 25 million Gmail accounts. This event has heightened Google’s interest in improving the security of its services.
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