New Biden statement on SolarWinds cyber campaign: "I have instructed my team to learn as much as we can about this breach ... my administration will make cybersecurity a top priority ... and we will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office."
Biden promises to "elevate cybersecurity as an imperative across the government," with better private-sector ties, more infrastructure and personnel funding, & improved deterrence in partnership with allies.
"I will not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation."
Biden's statement is both very vague and the most he's said about cyber.
Nothing about:
* If he thinks "defend forward" is working
* How his deterrence plan will differ from what Trump agencies did
* How he'll treat espionage vs. destructive attacks
* How he'll "elevate" cyber
Here's a story I wrote in August about Biden's campaign laying the groundwork for an elevated cyber agenda: politico.com/news/2020/08/2…
Chairman Johnson, kicking things off, says, “Much of the [fraud] suspicion comes from a lack of understanding of how everything works.”
Johnson: Voting technology “should not be connected to the internet, but we found some do have the capability of being connected, and there are allegations that some were.”
Johnson: To figure out if any voting machines were compromised in this election, “computer science experts must be given the opportunity to examine these allegations.”
NSC mtg of Cyber Response Group yielded some progress — govt has a list of hacked agencies, tho more could emerge — but officials still don't know what hackers stole.
"We are in very, very early days," official said, "and there's a sense that...the news is going to get worse."
The NSC CRG, following an Obama-era directive, established a Unified Coordination Group to streamline agencies' crisis collaboration.
"We're declaring this a significant cyber event," U.S. official said, using term reserved for crises such as NotPetya.
This is a big loss for CISA, which hired Masterson in 2018 after House Speaker Paul Ryan blocked his reappointment to the Election Assistance Commission.
Election officials widely praised Masterson for helping improve the relationship between them and the federal government.
.@mastersonmv confirms to me that he is leaving CISA, as first reported by @dnvolz.
Masterson, a senior cyber adviser working on election security at CISA, is leaving to join @stanfordio.
"I will be working on documenting what worked and didn’t work around election security and figuring out where we go from here on disinformation," Masterson tells me.
“I saw it first, and I said, ‘If this doesn’t get you fired, nothing will,’ and his response back was essentially, ‘Yeah, this might do it.’”
WH personnel office called CISA’s chief of staff on Veterans' Day to tell her that WH was going to ask for CISA Assistant Director for Cybersecurity Bryan Ware’s resignation, Travis says.
"We...pressed that it would be silly to change the CISA team” during election & OWS.
CISA's chief of staff asked the WH if Ware was the only one, Travis says. His understanding, he says, is that the answer at that time was yes.
Got some thoughts about Friday's #TheMandalorian episode, but first: Disney shouldn't have hired an actress who was sued for transphobic harassment.
The lawsuit was dismissed, but that doesn't necessarily mean much when the defendant is a celebrity.
Avoidable blunder here.
Transgender people endure constant abuse simply because of who they are, and Disney/Lucasfilm's refusal to even acknowledge their anger is a disappointing act of corporate cowardice that casts doubt on their oft-stated commitment to inclusion.
Transgender SW fans deserve better.
As for the episode, I really liked how Favreau and Filoni adapted Ahsoka for live-action — probably one of their most challenging tasks so far, given fan expectations. She looked great, and I loved how she moved like a wraith during the fight scenes. Overall, very impressive.