Category Archives: Trump White House

Trump signs long-awaited cybersecurity executive order

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President Trump signed an executive order on cybersecurity Thursday, saying his administration will begin to manage cyber-risk across the U.S. government as a whole, hold agency heads personally responsibility for the protection of their networks and place modernization of federal IT at the heart of efforts to bolster computer security. “We spend a lot of time and inordinate money protecting antiquated and outdated systems,” said Thomas Bossert, the president’s homeland security adviser, who made a surprise appearance at the podium during the daily White House press briefing to announce the signing. The EO, which had originally been scheduled to be signed in January — only to be pulled the day of the planned signature — has been circulating in increasingly detailed draft form since then, but the signing Thursday came out of the blue on a day the White House continued to struggle with the fallout from the president’s shock decision to fire FBI Director James […]

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Congress’ new spending bill includes $100M to counter Russian information operations

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At least $100 million in funding specifically to counter Russian information operations will be available under a newly unveiled spending bill to keep the U.S. government running until the end of September. Dubbed the “Countering Russian Influence Fund,” the new initiative is designed to provide support to “civil society organizations and other entities” based in Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia. The inclusion of the provision comes just one day after President Trump once again downplayed the impact of Russian information operations on the 2016 presidential election during a nationally televised interview with CBS News. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a historic, declassified report in January accusing Russian intelligence services of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and email mailbox of top political strategist John Podesta in an effort to leak confidential messages that would discredit Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Congress must send the spending bill to Trump for his signature […]

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White House: Cyber executive order is close, will be ‘intertwined’ with federal IT modernization

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The Trump administration is “close” to unveiling its cybersecurity executive order and is carefully aligning its policy in that area with plans for modernizing federal IT networks, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Robert Joyce said Monday in his first public comments since taking office. “We must make sure that innovation and cybersecurity are intertwined,” Joyce told an international cybersecurity conference at Georgetown University. He said the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was working with White House tech policy aides Chris Lidell and  Reed Cordish on “a major effort” in Kushner’s newly minted Office of American Innovation to develop “approaches for the president’s consideration to modernize federal IT systems, retire outdated systems and move to shared services.” White House staff would ensure that the two initiatives “are closely aligned,” Joyce said. “I get to participate in, my staff gets to participate in those meetings,” he said of the innovation office’s work on federal IT. Asked whether modernization policy […]

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Experts: Trump to follow Obama’s lead on cyber policy

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In cybersecurity policy, if in nothing else, there is likely to be a great deal of continuity between the Trump presidency and its predecessor, scholars and executives said Wednesday — seizing in particular on a renewed push for federal IT modernization expected from the incoming administration. “What you see in the draft [executive order on cybersecurity the administration has […]

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Bush’s federal IT chief hopes for role in Trump administration

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Karen Evans, the former head of federal IT under President George W. Bush, told CyberScoop she hopes to serve in the current administration. “I would be honored if the Trump administration asked me to come in and work on our nation’s problems,” she said in an interview on the sidelines of the RSA security conference Tuesday. She added […]

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