The co-chairs of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission called on the White House to maintain the cybersecurity authorities outlined in a 2018 national security presidential memorandum, FCW reported Friday.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., the commission’s co-chairs, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden saying the NSPM-13 memo expanded the Department of Defense’s authority to approve defensive and offensive cyber operations.
The lawmakers said the memo helped “limit Russian cyber-enabled information operations” during the 2018 midterm elections and presidential election in 2020.
They urged the administration not to make any major changes to the memo that provides the government a more agile process to decide on offensive cyber activities that seek to protect the country’s critical infrastructure.
“Any effort to alter and possibly weaken NSPM-13 signals to our adversaries a lack of credible willingness to use offensive cyber capabilities which undermines the credibility of our deterrent,” the letter reads.
