Category Archives: Kamala Harris

Senate confirms former White House, NSA official Jen Easterly as CISA director after delay

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Seven months into Joe Biden’s presidency, an administration confronting several cybersecurity crises finally has a permanent director en route to take over one of the top few cyber posts in the federal government. The Senate on Monday confirmed Jen Easterly as director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency by voice vote. Once she’s sworn in, Easterly — the departing head of Morgan Stanley’s Fusion Resilience Center and a former White House and National Security Agency official — will be busy with the aftermath of a spree of ransomware attacks that have attracted the attention of policymakers like none before. They include incidents at fuel supplier Colonial Pipeline, meat processor JBS and software company Kaseya, where a compromise opened the door for attackers to claim perhaps thousands of victims. In the early months of the Biden administration, officials also have contended with a cyber-espionage operation that […]

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Senators Call on FCC To Investigate T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint Selling Location Data to Bounty Hunters

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After Motherboard’s article, Senators Kamala Harris, Mark Warner, and Ron Wyden are coming out against telcos who are selling their customers’ location data. Continue reading Senators Call on FCC To Investigate T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint Selling Location Data to Bounty Hunters→

Senate hearing presses DHS for details on election security progress

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A Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday appraised how well the Trump administration is tackling the issue of election security, amid fears of foreign interference through cyberattacks and other means. Much of the hearing focused on the increasingly close relationship between the Department of Homeland Security and the state and local offices that run elections. Having declared election systems as part of the country’s critical infrastructure in January 2017, DHS has been offering states and localities various forms of voluntary support on election security. Many election officials initially were skeptical of the designation and feared federal overreach, a sentiment that was acknowledged at Wednesday’s hearing. “The administration of elections is the responsibility of the state and local officials and the support your agency provides is on a voluntary basis. What we’ve learned is that states will only engage with the department if they feel there’s value,” said Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen […]

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Senate panel gives go-ahead to bill that would hit reset on DHS

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Congress is moving forward with a plan to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security for the first time since its 2002 creation and establish a permanent, dedicated cyber office within the agency. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs approved the legislation Wednesday. The current bill is a version of what the House passed in July. If it passes in the full Senate, it would still need to see action in the House, even though that side of Congress already passed two attempts to reauthorize DHS last year. The Senate bill would reorganize DHS’s National Protection and Programs Directorate into a dedicated cyber agency, called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. NPPD was established in 2007 by DHS and therefore isn’t officially deputized by Congress. The new office would be headed by an department undersecretary. “Passing the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act is an important step to strengthen DHS and to establish a process […]

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Bipartisan bill calls for more coordination between federal, state officials on election cybersecurity

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A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation on Thursday that aims to protect U.S. elections from foreign meddling through cyberattacks, citing reports from the intelligence community that Russia explored such interference in the 2016 election. The bill, called the Secure Elections Act, would facilitate communication among the federal, state and local levels of government on cyberthreats to elections. Specifically, it would require the Department of Homeland Security to expedite security clearances for state election officials to review information on such threats. The legislation also seeks to provide guidelines for how to secure election systems and would provide grants states to implement those guidelines and upgrade their election equipment. The bill would also create a “Hack the Election” program that would allow independent researchers to assess the security of election systems. The provision doesn’t specify whether it would have to be a bug bounty program like the U.S. military’s recent efforts. James Lankford, R-Okla., […]

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