A bipartisan group of 22 senators urged the Department of Homeland Security to provide details about the government’s preparedness for cyberattacks from Russia, as its invasion of Ukraine has American lawmakers on edge.
Fears of a catastrophic Russian cyberattack accompanying physical attacks on Ukraine that could spiral out of control have not yet materialized. The senators wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to get information on the government’s plan to defend against cyberattacks, hacks and disinformation that may still come.
“Given Russia’s history of disruptive cyber and disinformation activities, we are concerned that the United States may be targeted in retaliation for actions taken to impose costs on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine,” reads the senators’ letter sent Sunday. “As we stand with the Ukrainian people, impose crushing sanctions on [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s regime, and push for additional security assistance to help Ukraine defend itself, we also must work to secure the homeland from retaliatory cyber activities.”
The 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 what business sectors are targets, as well as how the government is sharing technical guidance to small businesses and organizations and how the threat of disinformation has changed since Russia’s invasion, among other things.
CISA recently released new details about its work to prepare for a major cyberattack. The agency said Monday that it hosted a three-day cyber exercise last week called “Cyber Storm VIII,” which included about 200 organizations from 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 exfiltration. CISA Director Jen Easterly said in a statement that regular exercises like Cyber Storm play a critical role in building resilience and honing incident response capabilities.
The U.S. government has struggled to explain why a disastrous Russian cyberattack has not accompanied Russia’s physical attack in Ukraine.
Sen. Mark R. Warner, Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Monday that he questioned intelligence community officials in public and private and does not have answers on the Russians’ lack of such action.
Mr. Warner told the Center for Strategic and International Studies that conventional wisdom suggests the Russians may have thought they would accomplish their goals in Ukraine quickly or did not want to destroy infrastructure that would be costly to rebuild. He said it remains to be seen if they are holding back tools in their cyber arsenal for use against America.
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