No replies to this topic

[Blake]

Last week we solicited questions for US Representative Jim Langevin (D-RI), one of the chairs of the CSIS Cybersecurity Commission. Here are his answers — along with contact information for him if you want to continue the conversation.

1) Red Teams
by Bananatree3

The NSA has had great success with Red Teams and competitions between security experts in helping learn how to better secure sensitive data and to keep up to date with the latest attack techniques.

What are your plans to utilize this powerful technique? If applied elsewhere, Red Team competitions can help better secure other aspects of the internet and to stay up to date.

Rep. Langevin: I couldn't agree more. I've been an advocate of moving away from the paperwork exercises that have become more prevalent in Federal government IT security towards a more operational-focused testing environment like red/blue teams and penetration testing. In fact, I wrote a bill (HR 5983) this year that would have required the heads of appropriate Federal agencies (DHS, NSA, DOD, etc.) to create security control testing protocols to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security's networks are protected against known attacks and exploits. The bill would have essentially given the DHS Inspector General the ability to red/blue team the Department's networks to determine whether or not the Department's security policies and controls were effective. READ MORE