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A bipartisan group of 22 senators has urged the Department of Homeland Security to provide details on the government’s preparations for cyberattacks from Russia, as the invasion of Ukraine keeps American lawmakers nervous.
Fears of a devastating Russian cyberattack that could spiral out of control accompanying the physical attacks on Ukraine have yet to materialize. The senators wrote to Homeland Security Minister Alejandro Majorkas to inquire about the government’s plan to defend against cyberattacks, hacks and disinformation that may still come.
“Given Russia’s history of devastating cyber and disinformation activities, we are concerned that the United States’ invasion of Ukraine may be targeted in retaliation for actions taken to impose costs on Russia,” the senators said. letter sent on sunday. “While siding with the Ukrainian people, impose crushing sanctions on them. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is pushing for additional security assistance to help his regime and Ukraine defend itself, so we must work to protect the homeland from retaliatory cyber activity.”
17 Democrats, four Republicans, and one independent requested a briefing to explain what the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is doing to protect against state-sponsored attacks, and to share information about which business sectors are being targeted and how the government is being targeted. technical guidance to small businesses and organizations, and shares, among other things, how the threat of disinformation has changed since the invasion of Russia.
CISA has recently released new details about its efforts to prepare for a major cyberattack. The agency said on Monday that it hosted a three-day cyber exercise called “Cyber Storm VIII” last week, which involved nearly 200 organizations from the government, the private sector and other countries to simulate the discovery of a widespread cyberattack and coordinate a response.
The attack scenario involved organizations experiencing problems ranging from ransomware to data theft. Regular exercise like Cyber Storm plays a critical role in building resilience and improving incident response capabilities, CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement.
The US government is struggling to explain why Russia’s physical attack in Ukraine was not accompanied by a disastrous Russian cyberattack.
Senator Mark R. Warner, a Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Monday that he had questioned intelligence community officials publicly and privately, and had no response to the Russians’ failure to take such action.
Mr Warner told the Center for Strategic and International Studies that conventional wisdom suggested that the Russians thought they would quickly achieve their goals in Ukraine, or that they did not want to destroy infrastructure that would be costly to rebuild. He said it remains to be seen whether they are holding back the tools in their cyber arsenal for use against America.
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