Collaborate Disseminate
The little-populated state is seeing its governor and two senators move into key positions to influence cyber policy.
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U.S. Cyber Command General Paul Nakasone told senators that scaling back his organization’s cyber ops authorities would be damaging to its mission.
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The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee introduced legislation Tuesday directing the Homeland Security Department’s cyber wing to identify U.S. digital infrastructure that, if attacked, would severely debilitate national security, economic security or public safety. Under the legislation from Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency would designate the nation’s “systemically important critical infrastructure” (or “SICI”). The legislation also would make it a priority for CISA to lend its protective services, such as continuous monitoring and detection of cybersecurity risks, to the identified owners and operators. It’s an attempt, Katko said, identify which of the 16 sectors currently labeled as critical infrastructure are truly essential. “To mitigate risks to our economic and national security going forward, we need a clear process for identifying which infrastructure constitutes systemically important critical infrastructure,” Katko said in announcing the legislation. “Disruption to this infrastructure — ranging from pipelines to […]
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As part of its work to protect the 2018 U.S. midterm elections from foreign hackers and trolls, Cyber Command personnel visited Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Ukraine to collaborate on network defense with those allies and study cyberthreats, U.S. officials confirmed to CyberScoop. The trip to Europe demonstrates how the command, which has grown in stature and capability since its 2009 inception, supports and learns from allies facing threats from persistent hackers. “We sent defensive teams… to three different European countries,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, head of Cyber Command, told a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday. Nakasone did not name the countries. But a Cyber Command spokesperson said two of those countries were the Balkan nations of Montenegro and North Macedonia, which until February was known as Macedonia. And a U.S. government official with knowledge of the matter said the third country was Ukraine – something corroborated by a public statement […]
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President Donald Trump has rescinded a key policy directive that governs the approval process for cyberattacks conducted by the U.S. government, potentially opening the door to more offensive operations, an administration official familiar with the matter confirmed to CyberScoop. Presidential Policy Directive 20, which then-President Barack Obama signed in 2012, had installed an intricate inter-agency legal and policy process for green-lighting cyberattacks. Critics of the process said it unnecessarily delayed offensive operations, while advocates called it an important mechanism for accounting for all of the potential repercussions of a cyberattack. Trump’s reversal of the memorandum is in keeping with his administration’s efforts to enable military commanders to more freely conduct cyber operations against adversaries such as nation-states and terrorists. While critics warn of the pitfalls of loosening restrictions on hacking operations, the policy shift answers a call from lawmakers for the government to be more willing to go on the […]
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