Biden Selects His Cyber Team

President Biden is hiring a group of national security veterans with deep cyber expertise with the aim for the US government to recover from one of the biggest hacks in history of its agencies by Russian cyber spies. The serious hacking attack struck eight federal agencies and numerous companies, including software provider SolarWinds Corp. US intelligence agencies publicly attributed it to Russian state actors. 

Cyber security was demoted as a policy field under the administration of former US President Donald Trump.  

Under President Trump the White House diminished the US State Department’s cyber responsibilities and fired federal cyber security leader Chris Krebs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the period following Donald Trump’s election defeat but before Biden's inauguration.

Biden is committed to open a cyber-focused office reporting to a new National Cyber Director, who will coordinate the federal government’s widely dispersed cyber capabilities and the leading candidate for Cyber Director is thought to be Jen Easterly, a former National Security Agency official, according to sources. Easterly has held several senior intelligence posts in the administration of President Barack Obama and helped create US Cyber Command, the country’s top cyber warfare unit. She is presently in charge of Cyber Resilience at Morgan Stanley.

In the frame to replace Krebs at DHS, Biden is expected to nominate Rob Silvers, who also worked in the Obama administration as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Cyber Policy. 

Biden’s National Security Council (NSC), an arm of the White House that guides an administration’s security priorities, includes five other experienced cybersecurity officials.One of these is National Security Agency (NSA) senior official Anne Neuberger as Deputy National Security Adviser for cyber and emerging technology, a new position designed to elevate the subject internally. The other four new appointees are Michael Sulmeyer as Senior Director for Cyber, Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall as Homeland Security adviser, Russ Travers as Deputy Homeland Security adviser and Caitlin Durkovich as Senior Director for resilience and response at the NSC. All four previously served in senior national security posts that dealt with cyber security.

The Biden administration “has appointed world-class cyber security experts to leadership positions,” Microsoft corporate Vice President Tom Burt said in a statement.

Reuters:          Al Jazeera:      GeoTV:     Hindustan Times:     Image: Unsplash

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