Earlier this year, the Center for Cyber & Homeland Security at the George Washington University (“Center”) announced a new project on active defense against cyber threats. The Center established a high-level task force to examine these issues. The task force included prominent cybersecurity and industry experts, including Alston & Bird partner Michael Zweiback. The Task Force […]
National Security
President Obama Issues Directive on Government Cyber Incident Response
Last week, President Obama issued a new Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) establishing principles to govern the federal government’s response to cyber incidents, “whether involving government or private sector entities.” Titled “PPD-41,” the document also designates the lead federal agencies for so-called significant cyber incidents and creates an “architecture for coordinating the broader Federal Government response” […]
Department of Justice Indicts Seven Iranians for State-Sponsored Hacking
The Department of Justice has announced the indictment of seven Iranian hackers alleged to work for the Iranian government on charges stemming from a coordinated string of distributed denial of service (“DDoS”) attacks primarily against U.S. financial institutions from 2011 to 2013. One of the hackers is also charged with hacking into the supervisory control […]
Administration Seeks to Renegotiate Controversial Cybersecurity Export Control
The Obama administration will reportedly seek to renegotiate a controversial cybersecurity export control rule required to be implemented into U.S. regulations by the Commerce Department under the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. The Wassenaar Arrangement is based on a multilateral agreement reached by the founding countries in […]
DHS Establishes Information Sharing Capability and Process Required under CISA; Issues Multi-Agency Information Sharing Guidance
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has posted four documents on the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) website to satisfy several requirements set forth in the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (“CISA”). Details on the four documents are provided below. By way of background, CISA was passed into law on December 18, 2015 […]