Senator Hassan Statement on Cybersecurity Breach of Federal Agencies

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan released a statement following a significant cybersecurity breach of U.S. federal agencies, including the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Commerce:

“We must quickly determine what data was compromised in this breach and assess whether these hackers still pose a threat. Once we understand the full scope of the damage, the administration must immediately work to eliminate the vulnerabilities that led to this attack and strengthen our cybersecurity systems to prevent future attacks. The Senate Homeland Security Committee must make this a top priority. I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to fully investigate this breach and understand how we can better protect our national security and economy."

Senator Hassan is working on a bipartisan basis to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure within the federal government. Senators Hassan and Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the bipartisan Hack DHS Act, which is now law, that establishes a bug bounty pilot program – modeled off of similar programs at the Department of Defense and major tech companies – that uses vetted “white-hat” or ethical hackers to help identify unique and undiscovered vulnerabilities in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) networks and information technology. The Senators also passed into law their bipartisan Public-Private Cybersecurity Cooperation Act, which complements the Hack DHS Act by requiring DHS to establish a cyber-vulnerabilities disclosure program so that vulnerabilities in DHS’ cyber systems can be easily reported and fixed. Senators Hassan and Portman also worked together to pass into law their bipartisan Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Hunt and Incident Response Teams Act, which requires that the Department of Homeland Security make permanent “cyber hunt” and “cyber incident response” teams to work to help prevent cyberattacks at all levels of government and the private sector, and help mitigate the impact of such attacks when they occur. 

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