U.S. Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss) sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Transportation Tuesday asking for information on the departments’ ability to thwart cyberattacks.
Portman, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led the 10-member bipartisan group of senators looking into cyberattacks on American transportation and how the departments were able to meet their responsibilities to secure critical infrastructure as Sector Risk Management Agencies (SRMA) as outlined in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021.
The letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg asked the two departments to provide information on how the two agencies would work, separately and together, to assess risks, coordinate responses, facilitate information sharing, support incident management, and contribute to emergency preparedness. The letter also asked the two departments to provide information on how they intend to collaborate to avoid gaps and redundancies in federal risk management.
“In anticipation of increasing cybersecurity threats to transportation systems, DHS and DOT must have the capabilities and resources to prevent and address these threats,” the senators wrote. “As such, we request information about DHS and DOT’s security-related processes to detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats, including the responsibilities of each component agency under the Transportation Systems Sector-Specific Plan to secure the nation’s critical infrastructure.”
Joining Portman, Rosen and Wicker were U.S. Sens. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Todd Young (R-IN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Dan Sullivan (R-AR), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and James Lankford (R-OK).