Biden is answering press questions now and just talked SolarWinds.
"The Defense Department won't even brief us on many things. ... I know of nothing that suggests it's under control."
"We need international rules of the road on cybersecurity."
"The question of the damage done remains to be determined," Biden said of SolarWinds.
The hackers "can be assured that we will respond and probably respond in kind," he said. "There are many options which I will not discuss now."
"I promise you, there will be a response."
"It may take billions of dollars to secure our cyberspace," Biden says when asked about the practical implications of running a govt whose weaknesses remain unknown. "It may take a great deal to get it done."
"It takes people who are knowledgeable and vigilant about what is happening and how it's happening," Biden said. "So I'm just going to do all that needs be done," including a damage assessment, an autopsy of how it happened, next steps, and international norms.
"It will be an overwhelming focus for my administration," Biden says of picking up the pieces after the SolarWinds crisis.
I missed Biden's prepared remarks, where he also talked about SolarWinds. Here's some of it:
"The Trump administration failed to prioritize cybersecurity. It did that from eliminating or downgrading cyber coordinators in both the White House and at the State Department..."
"...to firing the director of [CISA]. ... Enough is enough. In an age where so much of our lives are conducted online, cyberattacks must be treated as a serious threat by our leadership at the highest levels. We can't let this go unanswered."
"Over the next month," Biden said, "I intend to continue focusing on building my team so that the right people are in place on day one of my administration to take over this effort, to prioritize cybersecurity across the board."
Biden continued: "I'll consult with experts to plan for the steps that my administration will take in order to secure our systems and prove our cyber defenses and to better withstand future attacks that we know will come, and to impose cost on those who conduct them."
"Cyber threats are among the greatest threats to our global security in the 21st century," Biden said. "I believe we have to treat them with the same seriousness of purpose that we treated threats of other unconventional weapons."
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* Bo-Katan recognizing Fett's voice and saying she's heard it a thousand times ... love me a @TheCloneWars reference
* Koska and Fett going for their flamethrowers at the same time was funny
* Phase 3 dark trooper: nice EU nod
* Loved boarding sequence. Great choreography & teamwork.
* Dark troopers were suitably tough for Mando to defeat. Felt like they had real power.
* Gideon was a good villain — loved his confident, no-nonsense style.
* Mando vs. Bo-Katan really seemed possible there. S3?
* My heart leapt when I saw the X-wing. Instantly knew. "One X-wing? Great, we're saved." 😶
* LUKE MF-ING SKYWALKER!!!!!!!!
* Luke cutting through droids like butter was perfect — exactly what I'd expect from this era's Luke. No malice, just mission. Entry montage was perfect.
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
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.