President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to appoint three officials from former President Barack Obama's administration to lead the country's cybersecurity division, according to Politico and CyberScoop.
Seven things to know:
1. President Biden will likely name Jes Easterly as national cyber director; Robert Silvers to lead the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Eric Goldstein as CISA's executive assistant director for cybersecurity.
2. Ms. Easterly currently serves as head of resilience at Morgan Stanley, and previously was deputy director for counterterrorism at the NSA from 2011-13 before joining President Obama's National Security Council as a special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism.
3. Mr. Silvers is a partner at the law firm Paul Hastings and previously served as assistant secretary for cyber policy at DHS in the last year of President Obama's second term. He also spent two years as the department's deputy chief of staff.
4. Mr. Goldstein is vice president and head of cybersecurity policy for Goldman Sachs; he previously served four years at DHS' National Protection and Programs Directorate during the Obama administration.
5. Anthony Ferrante, a former NSC director for cyber incident response and FBI Cyber Division chief of staff told Politico that the potential appointments show that the "Biden administration is making cybersecurity and the protection of United States infrastructure a top priority. He's building a strong and diverse team, with accomplished backgrounds in cyber offense, resilience, and investigations."
6. The new team would be tackling a plethora of cybersecurity issues the country faces, including in the healthcare sector. Over the last year, hackers increasingly have targeted hospitals, health systems and other healthcare organizations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
7. In July 2020, the National Security Agency confirmed Russian hacking group APT29, sometimes known as Cozy Bear, tried stealing COVID-19 vaccine information from healthcare organizations in the U.S., among other countries. Late last year, the Solar Winds data breach also touched healthcare organizations, and the government sent out alerts to hospitals and health systems about a rise in attacks prompted by the vulnerabilities from the pandemic.