Category Archives: Richard Burr

Citing security concerns, senators call on White House to appoint coordinator for 5G issues

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A bipartisan group of senators wants the Trump administration to appoint a top official to coordinate policy for issues related to 5G communications, saying the current marketplace for the technology poses an “unprecedented security challenge” to the U.S. and its allies. “China’s leadership [in 5G], combined with the United States’ increased reliance on high-speed, reliable telecommunications services to facilitate both commerce and defense, poses a strategic risk for the country,” the senators wrote Tuesday to White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, advising him to tap a senior official to coordinate 5G policy across federal agencies. The chairman and ranking member of Senate committees dealing with intelligence, foreign relations, defense and homeland security all signed the letter. U.S. officials have long fretted that Chinese telecommunications companies like Huawei are in prime position to shape 5G deployments around the world. Those networks, which promise must faster connectivity, would be ripe for Chinese […]

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Russian disinformation ops were bigger than we thought

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Through a flurry of social media posts ahead of the 2016 U.S. election, Russian trolls sought to deter African-Americans from voting, according to a report prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Internet Research Agency, a social-media propaganda machine based in St. Petersburg, Russia, encouraged African-American voters to boycott the 2016 election or follow incorrect voting procedures, according to the report by researchers from the University of Oxford and social-media analysis company Graphika. The broader Russian propaganda operation, which continues to this day, has also leaned more heavily on Instagram to sow discord that was previously understood, according to a second report prepared for the committee by private researchers from New Knowledge, Columbia University, and Canfield Research LLC. The reports, released Monday by the committee, represent the most comprehensive independent analyses of the Russian disinformation efforts. They show how, through hundreds of millions of interactions on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, the IRA looked for every opportunity […]

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Senate to review fusion center plan to deter Russian cyberattacks

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Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Wednesday they would consider plans offered by a Obama administration official to fight back against Russian aggression in cyberspace. Victoria Nuland, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told lawmakers that it would be pragmatic for the country to consider a new “fusion center” to deter foreign election meddling similar to what occurred in 2016. The approach Nuland described would look like the counter-terrorism model pursued by the U.S. government in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. “On the President’s direction and with Congressional support, the Trump Administration could immediately establish a multi-agency Fusion Center, modeled on the National Counter Terrorism Center [(NCTC)] but smaller in size, to pull together all the information and resources of our government to identify, expose and respond to state-sponsored efforts to undermine American democracy through disinformation, cyberattack, and abuse of the internet,” Nuland said. Senior […]

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Stalled election security bill is reborn with support from Senate Intelligence Committee

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A bipartisan group of lawmakers from the Senate Intelligence Committee is reintroducing a bill that aims to bolster election cybersecurity. The purpose of the original Secure Elections Act is intact: to facilitate communication between the federal government and the state and local offices that run elections, to expedite security clearances for those officials and to provide financial support for state election infrastructure. Changes include making funding available to local election jurisdictions and create an election security advisory panel, among other things. The new bill retains its five original bipartisan co-sponsors, but notably now includes leaders from the Senate Intelligence Committee — Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who serves as the chair and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who is the vice chair. “Our democracy is under attack by foreign actors who seek to undermine and destabilize our country,” Burr said in a press release. “This bill will help strengthen our cybersecurity heading […]

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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 Intelligence Committee pushes for improvements to election cybersecurity

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The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday published recommendations to improve election infrastructure cybersecurity as the 2018 election season is set to kick into high gear. The effort comes after numerous reports that Russian-linked entities tried to penetrate election systems in the weeks before the 2016 election. “It is clear the Russian government was looking for vulnerabilities in our election systems, ” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said. “There is no evidence any vote was changed.” The committee urged its peers to “urgently pass legislation” increasing assistance to states to hire technology staff, update software, contract cybersecurity vendors and conduct security audits. “There were 40 states that were operating with election equipment that was a decade old,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. “Much of that equipment had outdated software you weren’t able to upgrade even if you chose to.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s number one recommendation is to ensure that states, not the […]

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to bring back bill that bans strong encryption

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says it’s time to bring back the encryption legislation she wrote in 2016 that would effectively ban strong encryption as it exists today, Politico reports. Feinstein and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced the Compliance with Court Orders Act of 2016 early last year following the San Bernardino mass shooting. While the FBI butted heads with Apple over law enforcement’s inability to get into the phone of one of the shooters, Feinstein’s bill was met with great controversy but little legislative support. Never formally introduced, the bill eventually went away until this week following the FBI’s struggles to unlock an iPhone used by the gunman in Sunday’s mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. “I think we ought to move that bill,” Feinstein told Politico this week. Burr and Feinstein are the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Last year, Burr argued that current […]

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Why Silicon Valley is worried about the new Senate encryption bill

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The bill could put tech companies in a bind, essentially asking them to protect consumers’ data with encryption but break that encryption on demand. Continue reading Why Silicon Valley is worried about the new Senate encryption bill→