WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, on Tuesday met with Brandon Wales, Acting Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The two discussed the agency’s programs and jurisdiction, and discussed recent cybersecurity incidents including the DarkSide attack on the Colonial Pipeline and the SolarWinds attack that hit U.S. government agencies. After the meeting, Murphy released the following statement:

“The recent SolarWinds and Colonial Pipeline attacks remind us of how vulnerable U.S. government networks and private sector critical infrastructure are to malign actors in cyberspace. Cybersecurity is going to be a foundational element of our national security priorities in the 21st century. It is clear we've got to do more to shore up our own cyber defenses by improving coordination and information sharing between the public and private sectors. This is what Acting Director Wales and I discussed today, including increasing CISA's capabilities, hardening our cyber resiliency, and having a real strategy to combat criminal ransomware,” said Murphy.

On Monday, Murphy discussed the Colonial Pipeline attack on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.

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