Homeland Security Proposal

H.R. 1731, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement (NCPA) Act, is bipartisan bill passed unanimously by the Committee on Homeland Security. This pro-privacy, pro-security bill ensures the sharing of cyber threats is transparent and timely. It strengthens the NCCIC’s role as the lead civilian interface for cyber threat information sharing by: Providing liability protections for the voluntary sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures with the NCCIC or private-to-private. Granting liability protections for private companies to conduct network awareness of their own information systems. Allowing companies to operate defensive measures and conduct network awareness on information systems they own or operate. The NCPA Act also ensures personal information

With the Age of technology advancing, the more cyber-attacks are occurring. Many of our information are on computer networks and we like to think that our information is well protect. But how protected is our information? Cybersecurity bills are introduced in Congress almost every year. These bills regularly imply to permit organizations and the government to divulge dangerous information for a “cybersecurity” reason to secure and safeguard against attacks against networks and computer systems.

In order to understand the true problems with these plans in place, we must first discuss what these practices are. In early 2016, former President Obama created a Cybersecurity National Action Plan or CNAP, for short. The issue of cybersecurity is a very big one in the United States and President Obama knows and understands the true importance of this issue. The CNAP discusses some of the most important concerns over this topic and does the best it can to combat it with the best of its ability. This plan includes things such as establishing a commission on enhancing national cybersecurity using experts from outside the government, a proposal of a $3.1 billion dollar Information Technology Modernization Fund to help modernize and replace old information about this subject in the government, and invest close to $19 billion dollars for cybersecurity (The President’s National Cybersecurity Plan: What You Need to Know).

The Quadrennial Homeland Security review suggest six strategic challenges that will drive the overall risk to the nation over the next five years. These six risks include: the terrorist threat; growing cyber threats; biological concerns; nuclear terrorism; transnational criminal organizations; and natural hazards (DHS, 2014). The terrorists threat is, arguably, the most publicized and popular of the six risks the DHS lists. The particular risk is unique in the fact that although it can be planned for and mitigated against by state and local governments, it is primarily a federal responsibility, or at least perceived so by most entities. The DHS itself was established due to the events of September 11th 2001 and it has since been a consistent

The EO13636 directs the Attorney General Office (AG), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Director of National Intelligence shall create unclassified, and in some cases with respect to the classification of the material, will share all Cybersecurity threat intelligence. The report will only contain threats and will not contain any names, any current or future operations, law enforcement, current and pending investigations, or methods which were (Tehan, 2013).

Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) Number 63 was signed by President Clinton in 1998 establishing the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). 1997’s exercise performed by the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed significant vulnerabilities among 36 of the government’s 40,000 networks. The weakness and potential harm to the national security was obvious. In 1997, CIP initiative issued its initial report “calling for a national effort to assure the security of the United States’ increasingly vulnerable and interconnected infrastructures” (Merkow, 2006). In the year of 2001 the world nations realized the strengthening power and opposing threat from the leading terrorist organizations. In the United States the events of September 11 had changed the society forever. The citizens were left felt vulnerable to the attacks and demanded a response from the federal government. The response came in the number of organizational and legislative measures to increase safety of the nation and its citizens. Among all the safety of the nation’s information infrastructure was identified by President George W. Bush among the top priorities to protect the citizens.

“The number of cyber incidents reported by federal agencies increased in fiscal year 2013 significantly over the prior 3 years. An effective response to a cyber incident is essential to minimize any damage that might be caused.”

The United States of America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, and there are a full spectrum of threats that come from every single direction. The United States Department of Homeland Security is just one entity of the United States to ensure that the country is protected. In doing so, the Department of Homeland Security has a Cyber Security Division with a Mission to “contribute to enhancing the security and resilience of the nation’s critical information infrastructure and the Internet by (1) developing and delivering new technologies, tools and techniques to enable DHS and the U.S. to defend, mitigate and secure current

One key issue in Homeland Security and Emergency Management is the threat to cyber security. Terrorism has evolved over the years to more sophisticated and planned out attacks. Some of the attacks are stopped before the plans are carried out thanks to our nations Homeland Security experts, but many attacks go unnoticed by the public and security professionals, this is because of the method of cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorism can be described as varied as stealing data and hacking, planning terrorist attack, causing violence, or attacking information systems (Foltz,2004). The act of cyberterrorism leaves many people and our nation vulnerable if the terrorist is successful at stealing critical

Without a doubt, cybersecurity is one of the biggest threats the DHS faces. As technology evolves, this threat will continue to grow. What is the department doing about it? A cyber-attack could cause serious damage to our critical infrastructure if it was done properly. This is something that must be protected! The first step is to protect our federal networks and critical infrastructure. “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) works with each federal civilian department and agency to promote the adoption of common policies and best practices that are risk-based and able to effectively respond to the pace of ever-changing threats. As systems are protected, alerts can be issued at machine speed when events are detected

The immediate cyber threats to national security has been assessed as high. Cyber security threats are increasing in the number, type and sophistication of the threat. Although a detailed analysis is currently being developed, the ACSC’s Threat Report 2015 predicts the following attributes of cybercrime to increase in the coming decade.

The author sheds light on several different instances where the government has failed to put the proper tools in place to secure sensitive and classified data within its IT sector. They highlight the unfortunate security incident that took place at the VA and the steps taken thereafter to try and fix the problems within cyber security. They also discuss the importance of utilizing FISMA and NIST guidelines in an effort to try and fix the issues within a lot of the lower rated government agencies. The author also discusses how the low ratings are actually a vast improvement from the previous scores received by the government in the past and what was done to obtain the higher marks. This article is relevant to my risk assessment because it highlights where the government currently is in terms of cyber security and how cloud computing can possibly bring them even further down if not used properly.

Impacts to cybercrime today is forcing government and security agencies to place focus on cybersecurity within government, private, and public sectors. In 2015, the administration intends to pass legislation to strengthen cybersecurity across the U.S. government and private industry through information sharing methods. Contradictory controversy exists whether the government may dictate how the private industry should carry out their cybersecurity, if so, is it effective? Over the last several years, the government has collaborated with private sectors to develop programs, guidelines, publications, and information sharing legislation; but unresolved public concern continues to grow over information transparency and its impact to civil

Secretary Johnson, this memo is being addressed to you on the basis that the foreign policy issue that is threats to cyber security is of interest to the Department of Homeland Security. In brief explanation of the issue at hand, it can be concluded that the major foreign policy problem of cyber security threats has created and will continue to create imitate danger to the United States of America. The act of breaching the security sustained around private networks has become renowned as a type of terrorism, one that has rapidly evolved since the beginning of the 21st century and has gained even more strength with the increased use of computers. This threat has the potential to risk the exposure of the nation’s most valuable information including government documents, military plans that are considered top secret, and even the United States power grid. The convenience and the ease of use has made this threat greater as individuals conducting what has become known as cyber attacks can be thousands of miles away from the network they hack into. In order for this threat to be combated efficiently, a brief history based around the issue must be conducted as well as an examination of possible alternatives before concluding with the best proposed solution that will bring this threat under control and ultimately aim to eliminate it.

ARTICLE REVIEW: Closing the Cyber Gap: Integrating cross-government cyber capabilities to support the DHS cyber security mission, written by Edward W. Lowery.