“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spearheaded an agreement signed last week about how their agencies will work together on future cybersecurity challenges, Homeland Security Undersecretary Chris Krebs said last week. The pair is also urging more cyber cooperation between military and civilian government, Krebs said. The cooperation agreement came after the departments worked together on a plan for U.S. Cyber Command to come to the aid of Homeland Security and state and local election officials if the 2018 midterms were disrupted by cyberattacks or influence operations launched from Russia or elsewhere. That assistance turned out to be unnecessary because there were no significant disruptions. The Pentagon did, however, detail 11 cyber troops to Homeland Security’s cyber operations division in advance of the election as a sort of landing team that could smooth the path for additional troops if necessary. There are no specific future events similar to the midterm elections that the two agencies are immediately planning to cooperate on, Manfra and Krebs said. They are, however, reviewing lessons from the election to guide future cooperation.”
Source: Defense, Homeland Security Secretaries Spearhead Cyber Cooperation Agreement – Nextgov