{"id":766,"date":"2026-08-14T12:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/?p=766"},"modified":"2026-08-14T12:02:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:02:32","slug":"trump-memorandum-opens-offensive-cyber-operations-to-private-us-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/2026\/08\/14\/trump-memorandum-opens-offensive-cyber-operations-to-private-us-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump memorandum opens offensive cyber operations to private US companies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>President Donald Trump has signed a national security memorandum creating a framework for vetted private US companies to participate in government-directed offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal organisations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Trump has signed a national security memorandum allowing vetted private US companies to take part in offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move, signed on August 12, creates a framework for private cybersecurity firms to disrupt or disable computer systems and networks used by groups involved in ransomware, financial fraud and other cyber-enabled crime targeting Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the memorandum does not give companies a general licence to launch their own \u2018hack back\u2019 operations. Participating firms would operate against specified targets under US government direction and oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Supporters argue that involving specialist cybersecurity companies could dramatically expand America\u2019s ability to pursue criminal networks overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Critics have raised concerns about attribution, accountability and escalation. Cybercriminals frequently use compromised infrastructure belonging to innocent third parties, while an American-backed attack on systems located in countries such as Russia or China could potentially trigger retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The memorandum marks a significant shift in US cyber policy, effectively allowing private contractors to play a direct role in offensive operations that have traditionally been carried out by government, military and intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darren Williams, Founder and CEO at BlackFog, said: \u201cThis policy marks a significant shift from simply defending against cybercrime toward actively disrupting the infrastructure criminals rely on. While that could raise the cost of ransomware and fraud operations, offensive action cannot eliminate the vulnerabilities attackers exploit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCybercrime is increasingly cantered on monetising stolen information, making data exfiltration as important as operational disruption. Criminal groups can rebuild infrastructure, change tactics, and move across jurisdictions, so taking systems offline is unlikely to provide lasting protection on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOrganisations still need to focus on what they can control. That means detecting and blocking data exfiltration in real time, monitoring outbound traffic for unusual behaviour, enforcing least privilege and segmenting sensitive information. Incident response should prioritise containing data, not simply restoring systems after an attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump has signed a national security memorandum creating a framework for vetted private US companies to participate in government-directed offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal organisations. President Trump has signed a national security memorandum allowing vetted private US companies to take part in offensive cyber operations against foreign criminal organisations. The move, signed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,41,581,51],"tags":[685,646,77,691,78,119,687,689,683,684,688,627,686,300,681,690,84,682],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","category-government","category-north-america","category-top-stories","tag-blackfog","tag-cyberattacks","tag-cybercrime","tag-cybercriminals","tag-cybersecurity","tag-cyberthreats","tag-darren-williams","tag-data-exfiltration","tag-donald-trump","tag-financial-fraud","tag-hack-back","tag-incident-response","tag-national-security","tag-network-security","tag-offensive-cyber-operations","tag-private-cybersecurity-companies","tag-ransomware","tag-us-cybersecurity"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-08 05:48:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentciso.com\/middle-east\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}