Collaborate Disseminate
The Biden administration is considering revising the Trump-era policy which gave broad cyber authorities to the Department of Defense and Cyber Command.
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Dozens of NATO and EU diplomats who focus on cybersecurity issues descended upon Estonia last week for their first-ever “summer school” training on cyber diplomacy. The sessions focused on lessons learned from previous international negotiations on cybersecurity issues, technical developments on the latest cyberthreats, and international norms and laws in cyberspace. For five days the 80 diplomats participated with cybersecurity experts and academics in conversations and a simulation of a real-world international cybersecurity crisis, Britta Tarvis, media adviser for the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CyberScoop. The objective was to help diplomats from EU and NATO countries get “a more in-depth understanding” of cybersecurity strategies and technological developments, and how those topics affect the implementation of norms and international law, Tarvis said. Twenty-six countries were represented. The development of what is accepted nation-state behavior in cyberspace is still in its nascent stages. It was only five years ago that NATO incorporated cyberattacks into its collective defense agreement, for instance, […]
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The State Department has sent to Congress a long-awaited plan to reestablish a cybersecurity-focused bureau it says is key to supporting U.S. diplomatic efforts in cyberspace. The State Department’s new plan, obtained by CyberScoop, would create the Bureau of Cyberspace Security and Emerging Technologies (CSET) to “lead U.S. government diplomatic efforts to secure cyberspace and its technologies, reduce the likelihood of cyber conflict, and prevail in strategic cyber competition.” The new bureau, with a proposed staff of 80 and projected budget of $20.8 million, would be led by a Senate-confirmed coordinator and “ambassador-at-large” with the equivalent status of an assistant secretary of State, who would report to the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. The idea comes nearly two years after then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced he would abolish the department’s cybersecurity coordinator position and put its support staff under the department’s economic bureau. CSET would “unify the policy functions and […]
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In a speech to Interpol in November, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein lobbied other governments to do more to help Washington track down foreign cybercriminals. “By devoting appropriate resources to international cooperation efforts, we can properly address the increasing threat of cybercrime,” he said, adding later: “No nation should exempt itself from just and reasonable law enforcement cooperation.” Rosenstein was acknowledging that regardless of the Department of Justice’s investments in countering cybercrime in the United States, the department’s ability to put foreign crooks behind bars can rest, in part, on other governments’ cooperation in finding and extraditing them. That’s why, analysts say, it’s crucial to fund U.S. programs to boost foreign governments’ ability to crack down on hackers. A new advocacy effort from the think tank Third Way is trying to focus U.S. policymakers’ attention on making those programs more effective. “We think that the U.S. government should be […]
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In the wake of the White House’s decision to eliminate its top cybersecurity position, a Department of Homeland Security official has called on the U.S. government to robustly engage on cyber policy issues on the world stage. The Trump administration should have a “strong voice” at internet standards bodies and other global forums, working with allies and non-allies alike, said Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for DHS’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communications. “We have to figure out a way to continue to work together to ensure that the stability of the global system is maintained,” Manfra said Tuesday at the Security Through Innovation Summit, presented by McAfee and produced by CyberScoop. Manfra did not mention the recently-nixed White House cybersecurity coordinator in her remarks, but that position has traditionally been key to the United States’ international cybersecurity work. At a February conference in Germany, for example, then-White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob […]
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House Democrats on Tuesday introduced legislation to codify a top cybersecurity position at the White House following National Security Adviser John Bolton’s decision to eliminate the role. The bill from Democratic Reps. Jim Langevin, R.I., and Ted Lieu, Calif., would establish a National Office for Cyberspace in the Executive Office of the President – and a Senate-confirmed head of that office. That official would synchronize cybersecurity policy across agencies in much the same way that White House cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce was doing until he stepped down last week. Against the backdrop of Joyce’s decision to leave the coordinator role and return to the National Security Agency, a power struggle over cybersecurity leadership at the National Security Council has ensued. Bolton ultimately decided to scrap the coordinator role. An aide to Bolton emailed NSC staff on Tuesday saying the move would help cut “another layer of bureaucracy.” Politico was first to report on Bolton’s […]
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Be it through legislation or some internal decree, restoring the State Department’s cybersecurity policy office to a prominent place in the agency can’t come soon enough for advocates of U.S. digital diplomacy. Analysts and former government officials say U.S. leadership in shaping international behavior in cyberspace has stalled at a time when nation-state hacking groups are flexing their muscles. “I worry about a gap that leaves allies wondering and adversaries savoring the chance to take advantage of the perceived lack of U.S. leadership,” Christopher Painter, State’s former cybersecurity coordinator, told CyberScoop. “When you have diminished resources [and] when you have uncertainty, inevitably that causes some loss of momentum.” In the eight months since former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he would downgrade the department’s cybersecurity office, the United States has blamed North Korea for the destructive WannaCry ransomware attack, indicted Iranian hackers for terabytes worth of intellectual property theft, and […]
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Technology companies are increasingly joining together to develop and promote the adoption of international “norms” and other rules for cyberspace, hoping to fill a void left by governments and international institutions that have failed to act. The latest example of the dynamic came last week when a prominent group of corporations, including Siemens, Airbus and microchip maker DXP, announced a new nine-member cybersecurity charter. The document — essentially a nonbinding agreement to work to improve global cybersecurity — is currently open for other companies to join, one member said. “Cybersecurity is and has to be more than a seatbelt or an airbag here; it’s a factor that’s crucial to the success of the digital economy,” reads a statement on the charter’s website. “People and organizations need to trust that their digital technologies are safe and secure; otherwise they won’t embrace the digital transformation. That’s why we are signing together a Charter of Trust […]
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has a plan to create a new “cyber bureau” within the State Department that would focus on building relationships with foreign governments to coordinate on international cybersecurity priorities, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The proposition first surfaced publicly during a committee hearing Tuesday on the state of U.S. cyber diplomacy. Former State Department Cybersecurity Coordinator Christopher Painter and former Pentagon cybersecurity adviser Michael Sulmeyer criticized Tillerson for shuttering one such office, which Painter previously oversaw, last year during a myriad other cuts. “The Department of State must be organized to lead diplomatic efforts related to all aspects of cyberspace,” says Tillerson’s letter to committee Chairman Edward Royce, R-Calif. Since Tillerson took the helm, the State Department’s cyber diplomacy mission had been consolidated and wrapped into the Bureau of Economic Affairs’ Office of International Communications and Information Policy. The decision was […]
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With the passage of the Cyber Diplomacy Act in the House of Representatives, Congress took the first step Wednesday in reestablishing a State Department office that was dedicated to developing global norms for digital espionage and more. The bipartisan bill, which passed by voice vote, has garnered support from both sides of the aisle. It would codify and expand the capabilities of the Office of the Cybersecurity Coordinator, which was created in 2011 but abolished last year after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson decided to merge it with the department’s larger Bureau of Economic Affairs. Senators have shown interest in the idea of reestablishing the office, but it’s unclear if the House bill will move in that chamber. Insiders say the shuttering of the cyber office effectively downgraded the State Department’s diplomatic mission for the development of norms for cyberspace — including, for example, debating foreign governments on what should be considered a legitimate target […]
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