Category Archives: John Felker

John Felker, former head of DHS’s cyberthreat center, to retire from the department in September

Posted on by

John Felker, who helped expand the Department of Homeland Security’s cyberthreat-sharing efforts with the private sector, announced Monday that he would retire on Sept. 25 after spending five years at DHS and more than three decades in the federal government. Felker was best known at DHS for heading the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), the department’s 24/7 watch floor and threat-sharing hub for hacking threats, from 2015 to 2019. For the last year, Felker has led a division at the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that oversees the agency’s field offices across the country. The NCCIC, which includes a vast room of monitoring screens at a DHS building in Arlington, Virginia, is one of the better known federal initiatives to warn companies of malicious cyber activity. Following the formal creation of CISA in 2018, the NCCIC was rebranded and its functions split between two divisions. Felker’s Integrated Operations Division […]

The post John Felker, former head of DHS’s cyberthreat center, to retire from the department in September appeared first on CyberScoop.

Continue reading John Felker, former head of DHS’s cyberthreat center, to retire from the department in September→

Russian Embassy spokesperson confronts FBI, DHS officials in public event

Posted on by

A Russian Embassy spokesperson challenged two senior U.S. officials Wednesday during a public event in D.C. about why the Trump administration refuses to collaborate with Russia to fight cybercrime.  The exchange happened at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) focused on a new report published Wednesday by the think tank and cybersecurity company McAfee. The report speaks to the economic impact of cybercrime.  Along with other countries, Russia was specifically named multiple times in both the report and panel discussion as a “state sanctuary” of cybercrime due to the “close relationship between the Russian state and Russian organized crime.” That accusation didn’t sit right with one Russian government employee in the crowd. “Once again without any proof, Russia was called a bad actor in cyberspace,” said Petr Svirin, the Russian Embassy’s first secretary during a question and answer session. “If you are so concerned, why the government […]

The post Russian Embassy spokesperson confronts FBI, DHS officials in public event appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Russian Embassy spokesperson confronts FBI, DHS officials in public event→

Cyber companies urged to share — and not sell — threat info

Posted on by

Companies who manage and distribute threat intelligence need to stop thinking of their curated feeds as a competitive advantage and instead share them as widely as possible, officials and executives from the power and telecoms sector urged last week. “”The information that can help everybody … better defend their networks is important to everybody, so it shouldn’t be a competitive advantage, it should be part of what we regularly share,”  senior Department of Homeland Security official John Felker told the Intelligence and National Security Summit Thursday. “When you do that, we all get better at it [cyberdefense].” DHS runs several programs that provide free threat intelligence to the private sector, noted former Homeland Security Undersecretary Suzanne Spaulding. Additionally, Congress passed a cyberthreat sharing law in December 2015, creating liability protections and other legal safe harbors for companies that shared information with DHS. AT&T Vice President of Global Public Policy Chris Boyer noted that the cutting edge of the […]

The post Cyber companies urged to share — and not sell — threat info appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading Cyber companies urged to share — and not sell — threat info→

New DHS Russian hacking report was designed for RSA crowds

Posted on by

The Homeland Security Department quietly released a second technical report on Friday about Russian hacking, adding significant detail to a Dec. 29 document that private-sector security experts had criticized for lacking actionable information. “We know this new one is a significant improvement over the last one,” said John Felker, Director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, of […]

The post New DHS Russian hacking report was designed for RSA crowds appeared first on Cyberscoop.

Continue reading New DHS Russian hacking report was designed for RSA crowds→