Chris Krebs | |
---|---|
1st Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency | |
In office November 16, 2018 –November 17, 2020 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Deputy | Matthew Travis |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Brandon Wales (acting) |
Under Secretary of Homeland Security for the National Protection and Programs Directorate | |
In office June 15,2018 –November 15,2018 Acting:July 24,2017 –June 15,2018 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Deputy | Matthew Travis |
Preceded by | Suzanne Spaulding |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection | |
In office August 1,2017 –June 15,2018 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Caitlin Durkovich |
Succeeded by | Brian Harrell |
Personal details | |
Born | Christopher Cox Krebs January 30,1977 Atlanta,Georgia,U.S. |
Education | University of Virginia (BA) George Mason University (JD) |
Christopher Cox Krebs (born 1977) is an American attorney who served as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States Department of Homeland Security from November 2018 until November 17,2020,when President Donald Trump fired Krebs for contradicting Trump's claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. [1]
Krebs was born in Atlanta,Georgia,in 1977. [2] He received a Bachelor's degree in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia in 1999 and a Juris Doctor from the George Mason University School of Law in 2007. [3] [2]
Krebs's professional work has focused on cybersecurity and risk management issues. He served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Infrastructure Protection,and later worked in the private sector as Director for Cybersecurity Policy for Microsoft. [4] [5] [6]
In March 2017,he became Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. In August 2017,he was appointed Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection,and performed the duties of the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for National Protection and Programs until he was confirmed to that position on a permanent basis on June 15,2018. In November 2018,the National Protection and Programs Directorate was replaced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),and Krebs remained as director of the agency. [4]
It was reported that Krebs was being considered to serve as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security after the departure of Kevin McAleenan, [7] although he was reported to be uninterested in the position. [8]
On November 12,2020,it was reported that Krebs expected to be fired from his position;in part,this expectation was due to Krebs's role in creating a CISA website [9] to debunk election-related disinformation,much of which was being promoted by President Donald Trump and his allies. [10] [11] As CISA's director,Krebs was the "administration's most senior cybersecurity official responsible for securing the presidential election". [12] Sidney Powell,an attorney for Trump and Michael Flynn,asserted on the Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo Fox News programs that a secret government supercomputer program had switched votes from Trump to Biden in the election,a claim Krebs dismissed as "nonsense" and a "hoax." [13]
On November 17,2020,Krebs said in a tweet that "59 election security experts all agree,'in every case of which we are aware,these claims (of fraud) either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.'" [14] Trump fired Krebs via Twitter the same day,because the "recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate,in that there were massive improprieties and fraud". Trump provided no evidence of this fraud. [15] [14]
Later that month,a lawyer for the Trump campaign,Joseph diGenova,called for Krebs to be "drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot". DiGenova's specific criticism was that Krebs "thinks the election went well". [16] [17] Krebs responded to diGenova's tweet in an op-ed in The Washington Post ,saying "I am not going to be intimidated by these threats from telling the truth to the American people." [18]
On December 8,2020,Krebs filed a civil lawsuit against diGenova,the Trump campaign,and Newsmax TV,accusing them of "defamation,intentional infliction of emotional distress,aiding and abetting,and civil conspiracy". He said that he has received "a barrage of threats and harassment" as a result of diGenova's comments and "faces a genuine risk of imminent harm". [19]
On January 10,2021,Krebs suggested that Trump should resign the presidency following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol. [20]
After leaving office,Krebs joined former Facebook CISO Alex Stamos at the beginning of 2021 to form Krebs Stamos Group,a cybersecurity consultancy,which quickly landed its first customer,the recently-beleaguered SolarWinds. [21] [22] [23]
In October 2022,Krebs joined the Council for Responsible Social Media project launched by Issue One to address the negative mental,civic,and public health impacts of social media in the United States co-chaired by former House Democratic Caucus Leader Dick Gephardt and former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. [24] [25]
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) was a team under the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security.
Jeff Moss,also known as Dark Tangent,is an American hacker,computer and internet security expert who founded the Black Hat and DEF CON computer security conferences.
The EINSTEIN System is a network intrusion detection and prevention system that monitors the networks of US federal government departments and agencies. The system is developed and managed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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The Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is a high level civilian official in the United States Department of Homeland Security. The Director,as head of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS,is the principal staff assistant and adviser to both the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security for all DHS programs designed to reduce the nation's risk to terrorism and natural disasters. The Director is appointed from civilian life by the President with the consent of the Senate to serve at the pleasure of the President.
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Matthew Travis is a businessman and former American government official. He served as the Deputy Director for the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Travis served as Deputy Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) before the agency became CISA on November 16,2018.
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Jack Cable is an American computer security researcher and software developer who currently serves as a Senior Technical Advisor at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. He is best known for his participation in bug bounty programs,including placing first in the U.S. Department of Defense's Hack the Air Force challenge. Cable began working for the Pentagon's Defense Digital Service in the summer of 2018.
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SolarWinds Corp. has tapped prominent security experts Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos to review its practices after suspected Russian hackers compromised the company's software and conducted a sprawling hack across the U.S. government and private sector. The contract with SolarWinds is the first for a newly formed venture Krebs and Stamos have created together. The Krebs Stamos Group will advise clients on cybersecurity, with a focus on areas including foreign threats and crisis situations. The group will work toward 'national and economic security,' Krebs said in a statement Friday.
SolarWinds has hired two of the biggest names in cybersecurity, following the gigantic breach, which meant it acted as the gateway for hackers to penetrate US government systems. SolarWinds announced on Thursday it was retaining a new security consulting business founded by Chris Krebs, a former Homeland Security cybersecurity official, and ex-Facebook security chief and Stanford University professor Alex Stamos.
Former U.S. cybersecurity official Chris Krebs and former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos have founded a new cybersecurity consultancy firm, which already has its first client: SolarWinds. The two have been hired as consultants to help the Texas-based software maker recover from a devastating breach by suspected Russian hackers. Krebs was one of the most senior cybersecurity officials in the U.S. government, most recently serving as the director of Homeland Security's CISA cybersecurity advisory agency from 2018, until he was fired by President Trump for his efforts to debunk false election claims — many of which came from the president himself. Stamos, meanwhile, joined the Stanford Internet Observatory after holding senior cybersecurity positions at Facebook and Yahoo. He also consulted for Zoom amid a spate of security problems.