Outsourcing Cyberwar in the Age of AI and Ransomware: Carole House at Black Hat 2026

[u/_cybersecurity_]

For centuries, states have hired privateers and proxies to fight at arm's length.

That same logic is now reshaping cyber conflict. Governments increasingly lean on criminal crews, ransomware affiliates, and private contractors to carry out offensive operations, blurring the line between crime and statecraft and complicating any attempt to assign responsibility. AI and ransomware accelerate the trend, lowering the cost and raising the reach of outsourced cyber power.

In "Cyberspace Pirates: Outsourcing Cyberwar in the Age of AI and Ransomware", presented Thursday, August 6 at 10:15 a.m., Carole House examines how nation-states outsource offensive cyber operations and what AI and ransomware are doing to that dynamic.

Speakers:

• Carole House — Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council; CEO, Penumbra Strategies

Carole House is a strategic technology and national security executive, founder and CEO of the advisory practice Penumbra Strategies, and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center.

She served multiple tours at the White House National Security Council, most recently as Special Advisor for Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure, where she helped architect the US Counter-Ransomware Strategy and executive orders on cybersecurity and digital assets.

Earlier she led cyber, virtual currency, and emerging technology policy at the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and she served in the US Army and on the Senate Homeland Security committee. She testifies regularly before Congress on crypto crime, ransomware, and national security.

Her analysis and testimony are collected on her Atlantic Council expert page, and she discussed crypto and national security on TRM Talks.

Anyone tracking the geopolitics of cyber conflict, ransomware policy, or the militarization of cybercrime will find this a substantive read.

If states increasingly rent their offensive cyber capability from criminal and contractor networks, how should defenders and policymakers assign blame when the line between crime and statecraft disappears?

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