White House cyber chief backs new federal bureau to track threats

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis on Monday made the case for establishing an office within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to track and analyze cybersecurity incidents in order to ensure the nation has an early warning system to understand adversary efforts to target U.S. organizations.

Inglis, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s first White House national cyber director in June, pushed for the establishment of a Bureau of Cyber Statistics within DHS as a means to help tackle the increasing number of major cyberattacks over the past year.

“Unless we can kind of ride across the boundaries that jurisdictionally divide us, we’re not going to find out the trends until they afflict all of us, and we therefore have to appeal to a collection of that data by something, somehow so that we can get our arms around this,” Inglis said during a virtual event hosted by the Atlantic Council on Monday.

The idea for the new office was first floated by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC), a congressionally established organization made up of members of Congress, federal officials and industry leaders which produced a report last year on ways to defend the U.S. in cyberspace.