Collaborate Disseminate
On Wednesday, the US Senator passed a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality. Continue reading Here’s How Every Senator Voted on Restoring Net Neutrality
On Wednesday, the US Senator passed a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality. Continue reading Here’s How Every Senator Voted on Restoring Net Neutrality
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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Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has blocked Christopher Krebs’s nomination to be undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate until the department is more forthcoming about its detection of unauthorized mobile surveillance devices, commonly known as Stingrays, in the United States. In a congressional notice Thursday, Wyden said he was objecting to Senate floor consideration of the nomination until the department makes public a presentation it gave to federal employees on Stingrays in February. “That presentation included important information that I believe the American people have a right to know,” the Oregon senator wrote. Krebs is currently NPPD’s acting head. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to comment on Wyden’s move. In a March letter to Wyden, Krebs acknowledged the presence of apparently unauthorized mobile surveillance devices in the Washington, D.C., area and elsewhere in the country that could be exploited by foreign spies to track and […]
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Continue reading Sen. Wyden blocks Krebs nomination over Stingray demands
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers on Thursday reintroduced legislation that would bar the government from mandating “backdoors” — configurations that enable surveillance — in commercial software and hardware products. The move is the latest salvo in a long-running legislative fight over law enforcement access to encrypted communications, and it comes after a Senate committee recently sought input from big technology firms on regulating encryption. Law enforcement officials say encryption has hampered investigations by preventing access to suspects’ communications, while cryptographers warn that weakening encryption could greatly undercut digital security for everyday people. “It is troubling that law enforcement agencies appear to be more interested in compelling U.S. companies to weaken their product security than using already available technological solutions to gain access to encrypted devices and services,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement. She introduced the bill in 2014 and has repeatedly sounded the alarm […]
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Continue reading Government would be barred from mandating crypto backdoors under House bill
In April the US House of Representatives passed an Act that says, “Outer space shall not be considered a global commons.” Continue reading American Capitalism Is Suffocating the Endless Possibilities of Space
The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would establish a bug bounty program at the State Department, the latest effort by lawmakers and security gurus to encourage agencies to use ethical hackers to secure their networks. The Hack Your State Department Act would task the Secretary of State with setting up a vulnerability disclosure process for researchers to hunt for and disclose flaws in the department’s public-facing websites and applications. The program, which would emulate the Hack the Pentagon project the Defense Department carried out in 2016, would pay researchers for finding vulnerabilities of which State officials were unaware. “Any agency or private sector company should have an independent way of testing security,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., the bill’s sponsor, told CyberScoop. “This is one of the ways to do it – get an independent check on the strength of the cybersecurity system.” “A lot of these […]
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Continue reading House panel advances State Department bug bounty bill
On Wednesday, Senators officially filed their petition to force a vote on restoring net neutrality. Continue reading Democratic Senators Are Officially Forcing a Net Neutrality Vote
The world got a fresh reminder Tuesday of the difficulties associated with assigning blame for hacking – and of the consequences when a case of mistaken identity takes hold. New evidence reinforces the notion that a group dubbed the CyberCaliphate, which sent death threats to the wives of U.S. military personnel in 2015 under the banner of the Islamic State, is actually an infamous Russian-government-linked hacking group accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Associated Press reported. Activity from the CyberCaliphate coincided with attempts by the Russian group, known as APT28 or Fancy Bear, to breach the womens’ email accounts, according to the Associated Press. The episode brings to life established links between the CyberCaliphate and APT28 in a way that no cybersecurity research did. The hacking victims were led to believe that jihadists, and not state-backed Russians, were breaching their accounts and leaving threatening messages. Amy […]
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Continue reading Lawmakers call for action following revelations that APT28 posed as ISIS online
As the Department of Homeland Security prepares a new cybersecurity strategy, a report released Monday by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., called on the department to improve its information-sharing program and warned of the threat posed by nation-state hacking tools to federal networks. Talk of making cyberthreat sharing real-time and robust has “gone on far too long,” and U.S. networks “can no longer rely solely on reactive, indicator-based sharing programs” to defend against hacking, stated the report to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. DHS has worked to quicken the pace at which it shares threat information with the private sector via the Automated Indicator Sharing program. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week touted the program in testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee. “We’re encouraging more and more companies and entities to [participate in the program] so, at machine speed, we can advise them of incoming threat vectors,” […]
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