Cybersecurity & Tech

Lawfare Daily: The Offensive Cyber Industry and U.S.-China Relations with Winnona Bernsen

Winnona DeSombre Bernsen, Justin Sherman, Jen Patja
Monday, July 7, 2025, 9:45 AM
Discussing efforts to counter China in the cyberspace. 
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Winnona Bernsen, nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative and founder of DistrictCon, joins Lawfare Contributing Editor Justin Sherman to discuss her recently released report "Crash (Exploit) and Burn: Securing the Offensive Cyber Supply Chain to Counter China in Cyberspace." They discuss the offensive cyber industry, the private sector and individual players, and the government procurement pipelines in the United States and China. They also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each country’s offensive cyber procurement ecosystem, what it takes to sell an exploit, Winnona’s findings on the markups that middlemen add to exploit sales, and what it all means for the future of competition and cybersecurity.

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Winnona DeSombre Bernsen

Winnona DeSombre Bernsen

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Winnona DeSombre Bernsen is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council. She spent five years in the cyber threat intelligence industry tracking nation-state and criminal cyber threats (at Google and Recorded Future), and helps organize policy content at DEFCON. She is currently an MPP/JD Candidate at Harvard Kennedy School and Georgetown Law, focusing on counter-proliferation of offensive cyber capabilities.
Justin Sherman

Justin Sherman

@jshermcyber
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Justin Sherman is a contributing editor at Lawfare. He is also the founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, a Washington, DC-based research and advisory firm; the scholar in residence at the Electronic Privacy Information Center; and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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