Lawmakers Say Overhaul Needed to Protect Fed Agencies from Foreign Hacks

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding the federal government beef up cybersecurity, pointing to a series of attacks from hostile nations and the Department of Homeland Security’s current inability to detect and deter complex cyberattacks.

The calls for a renewed focus on cybersecurity come as the federal government reels from the "SolarWinds" hack, in which foreign intruders gained access to vast swathes of federal agency communications and records over the course of 2020. Intelligence agencies are still working to identify the scope of the damage but believe Russian intelligence likely accessed emails from the Treasury Department, the State Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and even DHS itself.

In its aftermath, researchers and lawmakers worry that foreign adversaries have the upper hand on the federal government, and that programs including DHS’s EINSTEIN, the first line of defense, are unfit for modern cyberwarfare.