Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said she wants the community of private hackers to play a role and help strengthen U.S. cyber defense initiatives, Wired reported Wednesday.
“We want to ignite the power of hackers and researchers and academics because, at the end of the day, the world is full of vulnerabilities, and I feel the offense is dominating the defense,” Easterly told the publication in an interview.
“So I want to make sure we are tapping into the brilliance and the goodness of those communities to help us identify and close those vulnerabilities,” she added.
Easterly also highlighted the importance of having “adversarial empathy” to understand how threat actors operate and the need for the government to partner with the private sector to “create a common picture of the operating environment” and prepare for future attacks.
CISA issued Friday a Federal Register notice announcing the establishment of a new cybersecurity advisory committee that will offer recommendations with regard to the development and implementation of programs and policies in support of the agency’s mission.
