Adam Segal

Adam Segal is a cybersecurity expert who is at the forefront of this burgeoning field. In his talks and in his new book, The Hacked World Order, he provides meaningful answers to urgent questions about hacking, cyberwar, and surveillance. What’s happening with our data? How can we protect ourselves? And what are the real, imminent cyber threats that exist in our post-Snowden world? 

Adam Segal has testified before Congress and briefed the Joint Chief of Staffs, State Department, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Department of Commerce on Chinese cyber espionage. The Director of Cyberspace and Digital Policy Program at Council on Foreign Relations, his talks discuss the intricacies behind U.S./China cyber relations—can the two countries break out of a dangerous cycle of competition and find areas of cooperation?—and what we as individuals and companies need to know and do about privacy, surveillance, and cybersecurity. 

He was project director for CFR’s Independent Task Force report Defending an Open, Global, Secure, and Resilient Internet, and is the author of the books Digital Dragon: High Technology Enterprises in China and Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge. His new book, The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age, exposes how the Internet has ushered in a new era of geopolitical maneuvering, and reveals its tremendous and terrifying implications for our economic livelihood, security, and personal identity. His other writing has appeared in The Economist, The Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs. He writes CFR’s Asia Program blog, Asia Unbound, which is carried by Forbes.

Segal is on the board of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association, has been a visiting scholar at MIT’s Center for International Studies, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Tsinghua University in Beijing, and has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University.