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Biden’s White House on the Hot Seat Over Cyberattacks Featured

The Biden administration faces pressure on multiple fronts after the Russian SolarWinds hack and Chinese cyber attackers’ breach of Microsoft Exchange flaws.

Biden smile 5621670 640As The Hill reports, lawmakers and other officials are pushing the White House to name a national cyber director. The Senate-confirmed role, which includes a 75-person staff, was left without a nominee more than 50 days into Joe Biden’s presidency.

The cyber czar role was established by the latest National Defense Authorization Act, which took effect January 1. The position holds more power than the previous White House cyber coordinator job, which the Trump administration abolished.

Michael Daniel, head of the Cyber Threat Alliance and a former Obama administration cyber coordinator, told The Hill that Biden needs to appoint the people who develop and implement policy proposals. “The Administration deserves credit for prioritizing filling cybersecurity positions, but it needs to press forward with filling the remaining positions as expeditiously as possible,” Daniel said.

The White House has been undertaking a 60-day review of the cyber czar job and its structure and sees filling the role as “a priority,” according to an administration official quoted by The Hill.

As FCW.com reports, members of a Senate panel have been trying to figure out whom to blame for the breach of nine government agencies as a result of the SolarWinds hack.

Rob Portman, the Ohio Republican who is ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, urged a panel of the government’s top cybersecurity officials to say who was finally accountable for the hack.

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg reports, the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security are calling on government agencies and high-risk corporations to use so-called Protective DNS, where a private security firm sifts out web traffic.

As The Diamondback notes, the Biden administration has named David Mussington, a professor in the University of Maryland’s public policy school, as the executive assistant director for infrastructure security within CISA.

According to CPO Magazine, the Chinese hackers exploiting Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities have affected more than 30,000 U.S. organizations.

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