Cybersecurity Policy Report, Board Investigating Salt Typhoon Hacks Terminated by DHS, (Jan 22, 2025)
An advisory board that was looking into the Salt Typhoon telecom hacks has been eliminated by the Department of Homeland Security, a move that Rep. Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, today said he found troubling.
A memo sent Monday by Benjamine Huffman, acting DHS secretary, ordered “the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately.”
Mr. Huffman said the boards’ elimination was an effort to prevent “the misuse of resources” and ensure “that DHS activities prioritize our national security.”
“Future committee activities will be focused solely on advancing our critical mission to protect the homeland and support DHS’s strategic priorities. To outgoing advisory board members, you are welcome to reapply, thank you for your service,” he added.
Advisory boards that were dissolved include the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), which was in the process of investigating the Salt Typhoon cyber espionage campaign that compromised the networks of nine U.S. telecom carriers and enabled the Chinese government to monitor the communications of U.S. presidential candidates and senior office holders (CPR, Oct. 28, 2024).
“The CSRB is in the process of investigating the Salt Typhoon hack of nine major telecommunications companies, and it is a national security imperative that the investigation be completed expeditiously,” Rep. Thompson said at a committee hearing.
“I am troubled that the President’s attempt to stack the CSRB with loyalists may cause its important work on the Salt Typhoon campaign to be delayed,” he said.
A witness at the hearing, Kemba Walden, a former acting director of the White House Office of the National Cyber Director, suggested that the CSRB’s mission was vital to the nation’s cybersecurity and that the board’s powers should be strengthened.
“The Cyber Safety Review Board has played a critical role in fostering transparency and accountability and driving improvements across federal agencies and critical infrastructure providers,” according to Ms. Walden’s written testimony for the hearing, titled “Unconstrained Actors: Assessing Global Cyber Threats to the Homeland.”
“This Committee should consider how to codify and strengthen the CSRB’s role in providing a mechanism to learn lessons from past incidents and strengthen our nation’s cyber defenses,” she said.
“Steps to strengthen the CSRB include making a full-time, independent, non-partisan board, with a full-time technical staff and administrative subpoena power,” Ms. Walden added. “Independence will enhance the credibility of CSRB’s investigations and advice.”
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the elimination of the boards was a permanent step by DHS or whether they might be reconstituted in some form.
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