Collins questions Pompeo on cybersecurity initiatives during confirmation hearing

During a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on the nomination of Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) to be the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) asked Pompeo a series of questions on cybersecurity and the danger it poses to national security.

According to a 2015 public memorandum by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense, the U.S. Department of Defense is subjected to approximately 100,000 cyberattacks every day, and approximately three million per month. Some of the perpetrators of these attacks include terrorist organizations, foreign governments and hacker groups.

“The recent focus on the cyber intrusion in the campaigns has greatly increased the public’s awareness of this problem,” Collins said. “But the fact is cyber intrusions go far beyond the political space, troubling and appalling though that is. How would you assess our preparedness in the cyber domain?”

Pompeo said Congress needed to work with the incoming presidential administration to build up the nation’s cybersecurity defenses.

“Senator, we’ve got lots of work to do,” Pompeo said. “…There is no reason to expect that this threat is going to diminish, and that will take a whole government effort to do that, shared by the executive branch and the legislative branch, to achieve better cybersecurity for the national infrastructure as well.”

Late last year, Collins introduced a provision for the Fiscal Year 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act that included a requirement that the Intelligence Community participate in a voluntary program to assist various critical infrastructure systems against the threat of a cyber attack.

Pompeo’s confirmation will be voted on in the coming days.