Security News > 2020 > June > Senator Raises Concerns About Ability of U.S. Intelligence to Protect Secrets
Senator Ron Wyden has raised concerns about the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to protect what he describes as "Some of the nation's most sensitive secrets," and he has sent a letter to the director of national intelligence asking for information on plans to improve cybersecurity.
Sen. Wyden sent the letter to Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe after obtaining an unclassified version of a 2017 report that analyzed the cybersecurity measures implemented by the CIA. The report was written after WikiLeaks started publishing information on many of the hacking tools created and used by the intelligence agency.
Federal agencies are required to implement certain technologies and policies to protect their systems, but Congress has exempted intelligence agencies.
"Congress did so reasonably expecting that intelligence agencies that have been entrusted with our nation's most valuable secrets would of course go above and beyond the steps taken by the rest of the government to secure their systems," Sen. Wyden wrote.
The official has asked the director of national intelligence to answer four questions regarding the failure of intelligence agencies to implement multi-factor authentication for website domains and classified computer networks, and failure to implement the DMARC protocol, which helps detect and prevent email spoofing.