US and New Zealand Try to Defend Against SolarWinds Cyber ​​Attack at Risk Due to Trump’s Strange Fixation

There have been many chaotic and complicated power struggles during the Trump administration, but one of the strangest is unfolding in its final days.

Says so.

Both houses of Congress passed an annual defense policy bill that covers $ 740 billion in military spending.

This year, it includes dozens of provisions to bolster US cyber defenses, including the creation of a national cyber director to coordinate the government’s response to digital attacks, a nod to a year that has seen a sharp rise in cyber espionage. , including the “SolarWinds” radical attack on United States government agencies and private companies that is still unfolding.

US authorities suspect that Russian hackers are behind the current attack, which has been labeled a “serious risk” for government and private networks as its perpetrators exploit a vulnerability in security software created by SolarWinds based in Texas to infiltrate computer systems.

Although the attack appears to be targeting US targets, our government’s Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert NZ) has issued an urgent notice that all local servers protected by SolarWinds Orion software must be isolated until they can be patched and change passwords.

Thus, New Zealand, which has lagged Australia and other countries in bolstering cyber defenses amid a series of attacks in 2020, will benefit from US attempts to quash attempts to compromise SolarWinds.

At first glance, you might think that any president of the United States would support, or even defend, such efforts.

But US President Donald Trump is now threatening to veto the $ 740 billion defense bill, with his new cyber measures, because it lacks a provision he requested on the totally unrelated issue of gagging big platforms. social networks.

In May, Twitter and Facebook began placing warning labels on some of Trump’s social media posts, indicating that they violated their community policies by glorifying violence or, in other cases, made allegations of voter fraud by mail and other. issues that were in dispute.

Outraged, Trump signed an Executive Order directing the Federal Communications Commission to take action that would undermine a key legal shield for social media companies. Specifically, a 1996 law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially prohibits individuals from suing providers of an “interactive computer service” for defamation if users post defamatory messages on their platforms because they are not considered traditional publishers. .

Trump gave the FCC two months to comply with his order, but the effort went nowhere. Legal academics and industry experts were unclear on what the president really wanted with his murky wording. In any event, the FCC is an independent agency that is not under its control and has no power to override existing laws.

Hence the president’s last-minute attempt to cover Facebook and Twitter with an “additional clause” on the defense bill, and his threat to use his power to veto the legislation lands on his desk without that provision.

The President of the United States has the power to veto (kill) any particular law just passed.

But Congress can, in turn, override its veto with a two-thirds majority.

And it seems that could well be what happens here.

The defense bill had bipartisan support and was approved by large majorities in the House of Representatives (335-78) and the Senate (84-13).

So far, Republicans have given no indication that they will give in to Trump’s will and add his desired social media arrangement, so the final days of his administration could see him suffer the embarrassment of his first override of the veto.

For his part, Trump has tried to downplay the SolarWinds attack, contradicting his own Secretary of State. He has also suggested, without any evidence, that China, more than Russia, is behind the attack.

“This cyber attack likely perpetrated by the Russians highlights the blatant vulnerabilities in our federal cybersecurity system,” said Susan Collins, Republican senator from Maine, on Friday.

“The president must immediately sign the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]Not only to keep our armed forces strong, but also because it contains important cybersecurity provisions that would help thwart future attacks, “he added.

If Trump vetoes the legislation, it will continue Trump’s recent questionable track record with cyber defense.

Cybersecurity chief fired

On November 18, he fired Christopher Krebs, the respected director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for making “inaccurate” claims about the elections.

CISA issued statements dismissing Trump’s claims that large numbers of people killed could vote or that someone could change the results without being detected.

The 2020 elections were “the safest in American history,” Krebbs said.

Democrat Adam Schiff said Trump’s decision to fire Krebbs was “pathetic and predictable for a president who sees the truth as his enemy.”