Katko Calls on Administration to Fully Leverage CISA Capabilities in SolarWinds Response

WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. John Katko (R-NY), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, is pressing the Biden Administration to fully leverage the expertise of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the wake of the SolarWinds campaign, arguably the most devastating cyber espionage effort in history.

In a letter to President Biden, Katko applauded the Administration’s stated commitment to responding to the attack and expressed desire to work together to understand the full scope of the compromise.

“The Committee on Homeland Security is undertaking a bipartisan effort to ensure federal agencies have the resources and authorities needed to thoroughly investigate and mitigate the full scope of this campaign and prevent such attacks in the future,” wrote Ranking Member Katko. “Most importantly, we must ensure that the federal government leverages current expertise and recent authorities critical to this response.”

Katko has consistently led the charge to push for more resources for CISA and centralized visibility for the agency over the .gov space to help it carry out its important mission.

“Any executive actions to remediate this devastating cyber campaign must utilize and build upon CISA’s expertise and authorities – specifically the long overdue federal hunt authorities provided in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021,” continued Katko. “Any change to established federal roles and responsibilities in response to this significant cyber incident would only further confuse the federal cybersecurity landscape at a time when more clarity is in everyone’s best interests.”

Read the full letter here.

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