The Case For Why We Need A Department Of Cybersecurity

 

Whenever a new Presidential Administration takes over, usually it’s the first 100 days which are the most observed closely.  It is during this time period that the new President tries to undo everything that his predecessor has done, and Biden is no exception to this rule.

And in fact, Trump Administration did the very same thing as well, when he basically tried to demolish Obamacare, upon which millions of Americans, even including me, are heavily dependent upon.

But what makes the Biden Administration different in this regard is the sheer onslaught of Cyberattacks that have been happening, especially when it comes to Ransomware.  As far as I remember, this is totally unprecedented. 

The Trump Administration did have to deal with this, but not to the extent that it is happening now.  Because of this, Biden has shaped an entirely new framework for just dealing with Cybersecurity.

For example, back in my he signed the first ever Executive Order legislating that new mandates have to be implemented as quickly as possible.  Some of these include the following:

*Supply Chain security issues have to resolved (such as in the case of the Solar Winds hack);

*The US Federal Government must deploy newer technologies;

*Between both the public and the private sectors, there will be a much transparent process when it comes to sharing of intelligence information and data;

*Rewards of up to $10 million will be made that leads to the apprehension of known Cyberattacker suspects.

There is more of course, and a future blog will go into that in more detail.  But there are some other key things that have precipitated since this Executive Order, and are as follows:

*A specialized task force has been created:

When it comes to conquering Cybersecurity, no one company or individual can do it alone.  It literally takes a village to accomplish this task.  As a result, just recently, Biden announced the creation of a brand-new task force that has been put together to deal with one thing primarily – the rising occurrences of Ransomware.  Although I have not studied as to who the exact members are, it is composed of a broad representation of Cybersecurity experts from both Corporate America and the Federal Government.  Probably the biggest advantage of this is that there will be a greater degree of “Cyber Resiliency”, in that new ideas and fresher ways of combatting threats will be thought of, and which will be made available to those entities that are wanting this type of guidance and direction.  But more importantly, by wielding such a powerful consortium of individuals, this will also help to greatly foster the cooperation and working with other nations when it comes to finding out who the bad guys are whenever a threat has been launched and made impact (technically, this process is known as “Attribution”.).  One of the other key objectives of this task force is to also stop ransom payments that are on their to the Cyberattacker.  So far, paying a ransom like this is not totally a crime yet, but it all depends on the situation.  In other words, under some circumstances, it can be considered an act of treason by the Department of Treasury, but this area is still murky.  But whatever it is, one of the other primary objectives of the Biden Administration is to prevent Ransom payments all together, and rightfully so.  Although companies are desperate to get their files back after they have been hit, paying the Ransom is no guarantee of anything, especially when it comes to getting the decryption algorithms.  Further, by paying the Ransom, this will only further fuel the appetite of the Cyberattacker into conquering much more lucrative targets.  In fact, the Department of Justice wants to escalate Ransomware attacks to that of a terrorist activity, which will make access to Federal Government resources much easier.  It is also hoped that by elevating the threat status of Ransomware attacks, the rising epidemic of it will eventually slow down, because the full weight of the US Government will now be behind any sort of Ransomware investigation.

*A coalition will be formed:

Do you remember the days of the 1^st Gulf War when President Bush was so successful in creating a coalition of nations to oust Iraq out of Kuwait?  Well, the same is anticipated here with this Cyber Task Force that Biden has created.  For instance, with this, it is hoped that more countries that are allies with the United States will come together as one strong coalition, and muscle up against those countries that are harboring known Cyberattack groups.  It is anticipated that by taking such an approach that nation state actors will give up these Cyberattacker groups so that they can be brought to justice.  Let’s face it, the last thing the world needs right now is a World War III that is fought totally by computers.  The effects of this could be far more devastating that anyone can ever anticipate.  For example, Critical Infrastructure will be the huge target, that will impact water supplies, oil and gas pipelines, the world electrical grid, and even the food supply system.  The world will be like as if nuclear war had just happened.  So it is hoped that with enormous diplomatic pressure and international sanctions by this coalition, these nations will want to have no part in being blamed for housing Cyberattack groups.

My Thoughts On This:

I think that these first steps that have been taken by Biden are great and is much needed.  But keep in mind, that these efforts will not yield in fruitful results overnight, rather, it could take weeks or even months.  And of course, just given how quickly the Cyber Threat Landscape is changing, this is time that cannot be lost.  But unfortunately in this regard, we are also dealing with government bureaucracy and red tape, which prevent from anything quick in happening.

I am also hoping that eventually the Biden Administration will form a centralized entity called the Department of Cybersecurity” and will be set up in a manner very closely to that of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  We cannot go at this alone or in separate groups.  We need a common entity that can handle all of this.  It will probably take more than a village.  It could very well take the entire world.