“Unlike Donald Trump, Joe Biden recognizes that cybersecurity is one of the preeminent challenges of our time,” Jamal Brown, the Biden campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement to POLITICO. He added that Biden would “implement a strategy centered around deterring malicious cyber activity and defending against attacks that impact our economy, our national security, and our ways of life.”

Cybersecurity has mainly been a below-the-radar issue for Biden’s campaign, which has focused on the all-consuming coronavirus pandemic, but the former vice president’s team is quietly gathering advice from three to four dozen private-sector cyber experts and former officials from the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

Dozens of corporate cyber executives also took part in a previously unreported Biden campaign fundraiser last month. That’s a sign, cybersecurity veterans said, that leading industry figures see Biden as the best choice to confront Russia’s election interference, China’s 5G ambitions and the inevitable next global malware outbreak.

If elected, Biden would blend lessons from his eight years in Barack Obama’s White House — including the searing experience of the 2016 hacks — with more recent advice on evolving challenges, such as the growing use of encryption, according to interviews with eight former cyber officials who worked with Biden or have spoken with his campaign.

These people, most of whom spoke anonymously to describe internal deliberations, said Biden knows what’s at stake.

“He's got very good people on cyber,” said Richard Clarke, a former top counterterrorism and cybersecurity adviser in the Clinton and Bush White Houses. “They're making plans which I would be happy with.”

Multiple former officials from the Obama and Bush administrations predicted that Biden would take a more direct role in cyber decisions than Trump. Cybersecurity would be “much more integrated and mainstream” in the administration’s strategy, one senior Obama cyber official said, “and not this outlier.”

Why cyber’s flying under the radar

At the same time, the experts say Biden is unlikely to introduce radical departures from Trump’s cybersecurity approach — because he doesn’t really need to.

For one thing, most aspects of cybersecurity are not nearly as partisan as the issues that have dominated the presidential race, despite the ongoing feud between congressional Democrats and Trump over intelligence on Russia. In addition, agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whose duties include addressing election hacking, have largely established successful routines and escaped the turmoil consuming other parts of the administration.

“It's not going to be a full-fledged reversal or major change like I assume you will see in immigration, health care, etc., etc.,” said a former Obama White House senior cyber official. Instead, the person said, cyber would see more “evolution” than root-and-branch replacement.

That may be one reason Biden has said little about cybersecurity during the campaign, compared with other issues for which he has released plans.

The notable exception was a 650-word statement last month on foreign election interference in which Biden made few concrete promises but raised the prospect that his responses to hostile nations might include retaliatory cyberattacks and “the exposure of corruption.” Those were two options that the Obama administration considered and rejected when dealing with Russia in 2016.

Digital security chiefs weigh in

On July 1, dozens of corporate cyber executives attended a virtual fundraiser for the Biden campaign, according to four people familiar with the matter. Former Goldman Sachs Chief Information Security Officer Andy Ozment, who was a top White House and Department of Homeland Security cyber official under Obama, hosted the hourlong event, which included cyber leaders from technology, energy, telecommunications, manufacturing and financial services companies.

The diverse turnout underscored the high stakes for businesses watching how the government handles cybersecurity. Between 60 and 80 people attended the event, a second senior Obama administration cyber official said, including some Republicans who described Biden as “right for the country” and for cybersecurity.

Befitting cyber’s generally apolitical nature, the event resembled a conference’s thought-leader panel more than a campaign fundraiser. After participants exchanged initial words of support for Biden, several attendees discussed the challenges they faced in their jobs protecting large corporations from hackers. After that, they held an open dialogue, during which some people asked policy questions.

“It did go into what people would hope to see in a Biden administration,” said the second senior Obama official, who did not offer details.

Among the attendees, according to people familiar with the event, were David Mussington, a former National Security Council and Pentagon staffer from the Obama era, and Gary McGraw, a software security expert and cyber consultant. McGraw confirmed his participation, while Mussington did not respond to a request for comment.

Who has Biden’s ear

If Biden wins, he would be able to turn to several close campaign aides with extensive cyber experience. Among them are Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, his former national security advisers, and former White House and Pentagon official Brian McKeon, now on leave from the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

“They were all pretty deeply involved in pushing [cyber policy] discussions and pushing this as something that's important,” said the first Obama senior official. Sullivan, who advised Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign, learned firsthand during that race why election security is important.

“Having interacted with some folks from the Biden team,” said Eric Greenwald, who served as a senior director for cyber policy in the Obama White House’s National Security Council from 2013 to 2015, “I know that cybersecurity is an issue they are focused on and take very seriously.”

Already, a large group of cyber experts is writing policy papers to help guide a new administration, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

Among the three to four dozen volunteers, there is “a core of probably a dozen who are doing most of the work,” Clarke said.

Many of the experts spent time in the Obama administration, but some served under Bush. “It's a lot of the usual suspects that have worked in this area for a long time,” said Michael Daniel, Obama’s cybersecurity coordinator at the NSC from 2012 to 2017.

The Biden campaign declined to answer questions about the people advising it on cyber policy and the documents they were writing. But Clarke said the plans cover subjects such as election security, cybercrime, U.S. Cyber Command, CIA covert action, protections for Americans’ privacy and ways to organize the federal cyber bureaucracy.

“They're laying out options,” Clarke said. “If Biden wins, these papers will make it really easy for the transition team.”

That team would also be able to draw on two decades’ worth of federal strategies, congressional findings and blue-ribbon commission reports. Several experts predicted that a Biden transition team would take a serious look at the March report of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a congressionally chartered panel that proposed dozens of programs and reforms for the government and the private sector — most of which have yet to gain traction within the Trump administration or among congressional Republicans.

Biden could also turn to his vice presidential running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, who has a history of focusing on election security and other cyber issues dating back to her time as California’s attorney general.

What Biden knows

Biden personally dealt with cybersecurity issues during the Obama era, when challenges such as Chinese espionage, encryption and — most infamously — Russian election interference surged in importance.

Biden’s interest in the subject “steadily increased over the course of the administration,” Daniel said.

The former senior White House cyber official recalled, “We would get questions from his staff in the cyber directorate in the NSC where they were saying, ‘The VP was asking the following question. Can you provide us some information to help respond to that?’”

Biden lacks Obama’s nerdy zeal for the details of tech and cyber issues. Even so, said Daniel, “he is very much going to care about their national security implications, their economic security implications, their public health and safety implications.”

And Biden’s July 20 statement, while light on details, impressed former Bush and Obama officials who said he sent the appropriate signal that he wouldn’t tolerate foreign interference in American democracy. One former official called it “exactly the kind of clear declaratory statement that I (and others) have been urging for some time now.” (It’s also the kind of statement that Obama never issued in 2016.)

Biden’s words inevitably drew comparisons with Trump’s repeated dismissals of the idea that Russia interfered in 2016 and is trying to repeat that feat this year — despite multiple warnings from intelligence officials. Under Biden, “I’d expect a much tougher line with Russia,” said the first senior Obama official.

The Biden campaign’s rhetoric suggests as much. “Donald Trump has failed to meet the moment on this vital national and economic security issue,” said Brown, the campaign spokesman, “and when he has engaged, it has generally been to invite foreign interference.”

Trump has maintained that “no President has been tougher on Russia than me,” while complaining that “Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling.”

Biden also has significant experience dealing with China, the other major U.S. adversary in cyberspace. As vice president, he was heavily involved in the Obama administration’s decision to confront the Chinese government over its theft of U.S. companies’ intellectual property. Those efforts eventually led to a 2015 agreement between Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in which the two countries agreed to a ban on economic espionage by their governments’ hackers — a promise that experts say China mostly kept until relations deteriorated under Trump.

Officials who were in government at the time called Biden a key player in the debate over how to handle Chinese hacking. He “advocated for conditioning success with Xi on other issues on getting a prior agreement on cyber,” Clarke said.

The U.S. succeeded by emphasizing that cyber was “important to the overall relationship,” said the first senior Obama official, and Biden “was involved in pushing that.”

Where Biden and Trump may agree

To respond to rising threats, Biden can take advantage of one of Trump’s most significant cyber-related decisions: In August 2018, the president signed a classified directive that gave the military a freer hand to conduct offensive cyber operations. Under Obama, cyber strikes had required the president’s personal authorization, but Trump’s order delegated the authority to commanders.

In a New York Times questionnaire, Biden said he supported that decision, because some operations “may be so precise or contained that a presidential order is unnecessary.” He also endorsed the forward-leaning “persistent engagement” strategy that has developed at Cyber Command under Trump, though he promised to subject it to “appropriate review.”

Even so, Biden may not know the details of everything Trump has approved, including a separate 2018 order unleashing the CIA’s cyber operators to hack with less red tape.

“Are they comfortable with that?” the former senior White House cyber official asked, referring to Biden and his team. “That’s going to be a significant issue that they will have to deal with relatively early on.”

Among other supersecret operations during Trump’s presidency, U.S. government hackers have penetrated Russia’s electric grid in a warning shot at Vladimir Putin, The New York Times reported last year. Trump recently told The Washington Post he also approved a Cyber Command strike two years ago on a Russian online-propaganda outfit that has played a prominent role in attacks on American democracy, although the Times reported that he did not personally order it.

Where the candidates differ

Biden would almost certainly reverse one major Trump decision: the May 2018 elimination of a high-level National Security Council cyber post that had coordinated the entire government’s activities. The White House says the move trimmed unnecessary bureaucracy, but it has prompted consternation from lawmakers in both parties.

Biden could go beyond simply reinstating the NSC cyber coordinator position, however: The Solarium Commission recommended that Congress create a larger, more empowered Office of the National Cyber Director in the White House — a step the Trump White House has opposed. Biden’s campaign declined to say whether he would embrace that move, but some of his supporters have.

An issue as important and multifaceted as cybersecurity “warrants a senior-level position in the White House,” said Daniel, who has endorsed the proposal.

More broadly, cybersecurity would benefit from Biden’s expected restoration of the Obama-era NSC structure that Trump dissolved, former officials said. “Under Biden, we're probably going to get process back,” said Clarke. “We don’t have process now. The NSC’s a zoo.”

Biden has also indicated he would resuscitate efforts to foster international agreements about the responsible uses of new digital tools, work that has foundered under Trump. In the Times interview, Biden vowed to “re-energize efforts to establish comprehensive cyber norms” to protect civilian infrastructure, saying the U.S. “should be a leader in encouraging others to adopt principles of responsible state behavior in the cyber domain.”

Potential blind spots

Former officials said Biden would need to bone up on issues that have matured since he left office, such as quantum computing and security threats to space assets. Cybersecurity is “evolving more rapidly than [it was] six years ago,” said Paul Kurtz, who served as a cyber and counterterrorism adviser to Bill Clinton and Bush.

Cybersecurity probably wouldn’t dominate a new president’s agenda even if the world weren’t consumed by a devastating pandemic. But Melissa Hathaway, who helped steer federal cyber policy from 2007 to 2009, warned the Biden transition team not to lose focus on the issue, lest it fall through the cracks at a perilous moment.

Kurtz, who helped manage the counterterrorism portfolio at the White House during the 2000 transition, agreed with this sentiment and drew an ominous parallel.

“When Bush came into the White House, he was not paying attention to terrorism,” Kurtz said. “And we have that void right now.” Trump “is not really paying attention” to cyber, he said, “and that issue will need to be corrected.”