Taking a Byte out of Cyber Operations

The federal government’s partial shutdown is impacting cyber security efforts and delaying progress on passing major cyber legislation, said several senior lawmakers. Some 60 percent of the intelligence community’s civilian workforce is currently on furlough,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Oct. 8 during a cyber summit in Washington, D.C. “The number of threats hasn’t gone away and neither has the number of folks watching what we do,” he said. “You can’t take that many people out of the work the intelligence community does and not have an impact,” said Rogers. Despite the government turmoil, Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he thought it still might be possible to push through new cyber policy by year’s end. The more worrisome issue, he said, is the budget uncertainty. “If we have to take a step backwards because of the lack of funding, that gives the bad guys an opportunity,” he said. (For more cyber summit coverage, read Elevating Cyber and Two Hats are Better than One.)