The Senate confirmed Chris Inglis as the first White House cybersecurity director on Thursday, on the heels of President Biden’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sharp concerns over a recent spate of cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure.
Inglis formerly served as National Security Agency (NSA) deputy director.
The Senate confirmed Inglis through a unanimous consent vote, with no lawmakers objecting.
Inglis will now serve as head of the new Office of the National Cyber Director, an agency created through the most recent National Defense Authorization Act. Biden has proposed a budget of $15 million for the office, though the budget has not been approved by Congress.
CyberAttacks are on the rise, and they’re increasingly targeting major infrastructure installations, like transportation hubs, energy facilities and utility companies.
Biden signed an executive order last month to bolster cyberdefenses and has been under pressure to respond in kind to cyberattacks, especially those linked to Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.
In the 2020 SolarWinds hack, at least 200 organizations around the world were compromised through exploited software from SolarWinds, Microsoft and VMware. U.S. intelligence believed the SolarWinds hack to be linked to the Russian government.
On Wednesday, Biden said she gave Putin a list of 16 critical infrastructure entities that are “off-limits” to cyber attack.
