The cyber agency also clashed with President Donald Trump, who fired former CISA director Chris Krebs after he unleashed the president’s conspiracy theories about the election.
Woltornist wanted CISA to hand over information shared by businesses with the agency regarding the SolarWinds campaign, according to the second person.
A DHS spokesman confirmed that the department had made the request, but not that it involved SolarWinds.
“A request has been made from the DHS headquarters to CISA on all areas of critical infrastructure and the contractual steps CISA has taken to protect information in the private sector,” said spokesman Chase Jennings. ‘With the scale of the recent cyber hacking, the exchange of information on threats across the US government is a top priority of the department, while protecting contractual obligations. DHS’s headquarters are responsible for overseeing operational functions of all its components, including CISA. ”
Technical data on cyberattacks sometimes reveal information about the organization that shares it. When CISA requests this information from businesses as part of its effort to understand cyber threats, it usually promises not to share confidential data with other agencies.
A CISA spokesman, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters, said that “CISA regularly shares operational information with DHS leadership”, but did not respond to this specific request.
The dispute, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, has heightened tensions between Trump loyalists within the government and CISA, which have earned the president’s anger over false allegations of election fraud he and his conservative allies promote has to discredit elected President Joe. Biden’s victory.
In addition to firing Krebs, the White House also forced its deputy and another CISA official. The White House on Tuesday fired Sara Sendek, CISA’s director of public affairs, who joined the government with Krebs and has worked closely to promote CISA’s election security work.
One of the people familiar with the matter linked Woltornist’s requests for confidential data to the friction that caused Sendek’s dismissal.
‘Political leaders at DHS tried to interfere [CISA’s] operational relationships with private sector partners, ‘said this person,’ and I think that was the last straw. ‘