Defense officials look at splitting up NSA, CYBERCOM

Top defense officials are considering disconnecting the National Security Agency (NSA) from the Cyber ​​Command (CYBERCOM), a move that the House Armed Services Committee chairman said was “ deeply concerned. ”

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., Sent a letter to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, objecting to the department’s attempts to separate the security commands “without consulting Congress or meeting the conditions set by the required by law. “

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The NSA and CYBERCOM work closely under the Department of Defense, and are both overseen by Four Star General Paul M. Nakasone.

The pressure to separate them during President Trump’s final days is the Trump administration’s final step to shake up the Pentagon.

Miller was appointed acting secretary in early November after Trump unexpectedly fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

Esper had condemned the use of the Insurrection Act during nationwide protests this summer. The 1807 law would have allowed Trump to deploy National Guard troops in the US

Miller continued the Pentagon’s turmoil by hiring loyal Trump officials and firing Chief of the Pentagon’s Defeat ISIS Task Force Christopher P. Maier earlier this month. The US also withdrew thousands of troops from the Middle East and Africa.

Smith’s letter Thursday condemned not only the apparent method being considered for the split of cyber defense, but also the timing.

“Any action to end the dual-hat relationship could have serious consequences for our national security, especially at a time when the country is grappling with perhaps the most damaging cyberattack in our country’s history,” he wrote in his letter to Miller. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley.

Cybersecurity officials in the US are currently addressing a high-level breach that compromised federal agencies’ “critical infrastructure”, the Department of Homeland Security said earlier this week.

The department did not disclose which agencies were targeted or the extent of the breach, merely noted that the “ threat poses a serious risk to the federal government and state, local, tribal and territorial governments as well as to critical infrastructure entities and others. private sector organizations. “

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“CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be very complex and challenging for organizations,” the warning said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo linked the attacks to Russia. But Trump, who first spoke out after the attacks on Saturday, contradicted Pompeo and came out in defense of Russia, blaming China instead.

“Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority song when something happens because Lamestream, for mostly financial reasons, is petrified of discussing the possibility that it could be China (it could!),” Trump wrote on Twitter, saying the seriousness of the attack.

In his letter, Smith noted that there are steps the DOD must take to separate the NSA and CYBERCOM – a measure Congress actually wanted to bolster in 2019 after chatter about a possible split, Defense News reported.

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“Given that no assessment has been carried out and no certification has been issued, I remind you that any action to end the dual-hat relationship with NSA and Cyber ​​Command is not only inadvisable, but in violation is with the law, ”Smith wrote.

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