Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) will chair a new subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee focused on cybersecurity, emerging tech and information systems.
By Justin Katz
The coronavirus pandemic pushed federal agencies to rely on technology to support telework, but some organizations are feeling the pinch from hiring freezes instituted at the start of the Trump administration. At a government IT event hosted by the Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC), a few speakers discussed the strain being put on IT departments. We all, I think, across the board have the security concerns that we re fighting individually and collectively, but the IT resources have been a bit of a struggle because of the hiring freezes that we ve experienced with the previous administration, Alisha Johnson, cloud program manager for the Department of Homeland Security, said Feb. 2 at ATARC s virtual cloud summit.
By Justin Katz
On day one of Alejandro Mayorkas tenure as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, if he s confirmed as expected, he ll be under pressure from Congress to deliver answers about why the federal government s cybersecurity measures failed to detect or defend against the SolarWinds Orion hack.
Mayorkas promised at his confirmation hearing to review the agency s high profile cybersecurity programs, including the network protection program Einstein that s a key component of the National Cybersecurity Protection System.
Lawmakers, prior to the discovery of the breach in December, were already signaling for changes to those programs. In recent spending legislation, Congress suggested DHS consider layering other capabilities into Einstein, which is run by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS.
A group of Democratic lawmakers is calling on the NSA to explain its part in developing a flawed encryption algorithm that was used and subsequently exploited through Juniper Network s security products, citing the supply chain hack involving SolarWinds Orion.