Senate Intel chair warns confluence of factors make election threats worse

Sen. Mark Warner said influence operations are easy and cheap, and their social media audience is more willing to believe them.

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FISA reauthorization heads to Biden’s desk after Senate passage

A two-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act clears the chamber in a 60-34 vote Saturday.

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Sen. Warner: U.S. is less prepared to secure the 2024 election than 2020

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chair expressed concerns about foreign intervention this election cycle and chided Biden lawyers for taking a “cautious” approach on social media misinformation.

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Bipartisan Senate proposal sets stage for banning TikTok, other foreign tech

The RESTRICT Act would hand Commerce wide-ranging powers to regulate the presence of foreign technology companies such as TikTok.

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The long, bumpy road to cyber incident reporting legislation — and the one still ahead

The legislation eventually garnered widespread support on its way to becoming law, but much remains unresolved.

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Spy agencies’ leaks of Russian plans point to the future of information warfare, Sen. Warner says

Sen. Mark Warner discussed American intelligence successes and information warfare at a Washington think tank Monday.

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Ukraine conflict spurs questions of how to define cyberwar

Legal scholars and cybersecurity experts are closely watching events in Ukraine with an eye on how the Russian invasion may redefine the laws of war for the cyber era. Many agree that Ukraine’s conflict with Russia — an established cyber superpower that isn’t hesitant about flexing its muscle aggressively — could test the rules of war in new and unexpected ways. Some say it already has. Exactly how these rules might be redefined is the subject of significant debate. In recent days, authorities as disparate as the president of Microsoft and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee have weighed in on how NATO’s Article 5 provision for “collective defense,” the Geneva Convention’s protections for civilian targets and other legal frameworks for armed conflict may be challenged in the coming weeks. On Monday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. and the chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said at a Washington […]

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Incident reporting, ransomware payment legislation faces trouble in Senate

Legislation requiring critical infrastructure owners to report major cyber incidents to the federal government, and mandating that ransomware victims disclose when they make payments, has hit a significant snag in the Senate. A bipartisan group of senators announced a proposal in November that would require critical infrastructure owners and operators to report within 72 hours to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency when they suffer major cyber incidents, as defined by CISA. It also would require reporting of ransomware payments to CISA from a broader set of organizations, excluding only individuals and some smaller businesses, within 24 hours. Advocates hope that by requiring swift reporting of major incidents, federal officials can help reduce the damage more quickly. Gathering intelligence about ransomware payments would help law enforcement and national security officials understand and act on digital extortion trends, officials say. Backers were unable to advance the proposal last […]

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Breach notification window, accountability are focus of coming fight on cyber legislation in Congress

Battle lines are drawn in Congress over legislation that would require companies to report some cyber incidents to the federal government, with industry groups lining up to support a House of Representatives bill poised to create fewer challenges for business leaders than a similar proposal in the Senate. The debate involves questions about how quickly companies would have to report attacks, what kinds of specific intrusions would trigger notification and whether failure to comply with the rules would lead to financial penalties. The idea of breach notification legislation gained momentum following last year’s discovery of the SolarWinds hack that compromised nine federal agencies and some 100 companies, as well as the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in May. At issue are such questions as whether companies have 24 or 72 hours to report an incident, along with who would be on the hook outside of critical infrastructure owners and operators, if […]

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Senate bill proposes requiring cyber incident notification to feds within 24 hours

Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner is sharing draft bipartisan legislation that would require critical infrastructure owners, cybersecurity incident response firms and federal contractors to report cyber intrusions to the Homeland Security Department within 24 hours. It’s one of the earliest bills to respond a spate of attacks that began with the SolarWinds breach and continued on through the Microsoft Exchange hack and ransomware incidents at Colonial Pipeline and meat supplier JBS. It won’t be the last, either in the House or Senate. Warner has been pushing the idea for months. At a February hearing of Warner’s committee the Virginia Democrat, other senators and witnesses from SolarWinds, Microsoft and FireEye discussed the thought Warner had been floating. The fear was that if FireEye hadn’t voluntarily disclosed that it was a victim of the SolarWinds supply chain hack that compromised nine federal agencies and many technology companies, the damage would’ve been more severe. […]

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