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Biden Takes Executive Action to Strengthen National Cybersecurity, Secure Supply Chains
The Biden administration this week issued a new spate of actions to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity, though details of its 100-day plan issued last month to address risks to the U.S. bulk power system (BPS) remain scant.
In a May 11 notice, the president said his administration would continue, for one year, a national emergency declared by President Trump in May 2019 to secure the information and communications technology and services supply chain. And on May 12, Biden signed a lengthy executive order (EO) to modernize cybersecurity defenses of federal networks, improve public-private information sharing, and strengthen the U.S.’s ability to respond to cyberattack events.
A customer pumps gas at Costco, as a worker directs traffic, on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in Charlotte, N.C. Colonial Pipeline, which delivers about 45% of the fuel consumed on the East Coast, halted operations last week after revealing a . more > By Ryan Lovelace - The Washington Times - Tuesday, May 11, 2021
The Biden administration is struggling to find an effective, robust counter to the cyberattackers who have repeatedly caught the U.S. flat-footed and disrupted Americans’ lives from the gas pump to the police station.
Cybersecurity leadership selected by President Biden last month remains uninstalled, and a federal cyber agency said Tuesday that it does not yet have the information it needs to prevent further attacks such as the one that hit a major fuel pipeline last week.
UK foreign secretary calls for cooperation on cybersecurity
By MIKE FULLERMay 12, 2021 GMT
LONDON (AP) U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday urged global cooperation to combat cyberattacks by “hostile state actors” and criminal gangs.
Raab also pledged 22 million pounds ($31 million) in support to “vulnerable” countries in Africa and the Indo-Pacific to improve their digital defense capacity.
He said Britain and the West must step up on cybersecurity or face the “multilateral vacuum” being filled by China and Russia.
“We need the combination of resilient defenses but also offensive capabilities, and the global diplomatic clout which comes with being a modern cyberpower,” Raab said in a speech at a National Cyber Security Centre conference in London.
Acting CISA Director Brandon Wales testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is still awaiting more technical details from Colonial Pipeline about the Friday ransomware attack that forced it to shut down its operations, the agency s acting director told a Senate committee Tuesday. Right now, we are waiting for additional technical information on exactly what happened at Colonial so that we can use that information to potentially protect other potential victims down the road, Acting CISA Director Brandon Wales told the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The FBI, and not Colonial Pipeline, contacted CISA to help investigate the attack, and the agency s investigators have been working since the weekend to help determine the size and scope of the incident, Wales testified.
By
Brad D. Williams on May 06, 2021 at 2:31 PM
Substation at Idaho National Laboratory
WASHINGTON: The NSA is spotlighting the importance of conducting risk-based security reviews of operational technologies (OT) across critical infrastructure, including defense.
“A significant shift in how [OT] are viewed, evaluated, and secured within the US is needed to prevent malicious cyber actors from executing successful, and potentially damaging, cyber effects,” the guidance says.
OT include hardware and software that enable infrastructure physical components to function, such as circuit breakers, motors, and valves. OT are prevalent throughout critical infrastructure environments, from power grids and telecommunications networks to manufacturing plants, transportation systems, and energy pipelines.