DHS secretary 'extraordinarily concerned' about latest software vulnerability that forced US Patent office to take its systems offline for 12 hours
CNN
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that he's "extraordinarily concerned" about a newly revealed critical flaw in widely used software that is roiling the internet and caused the US Patent and Trademark Office to temporarily shut down external access to its computer systems.
"It's uppermost in our minds, and, quite frankly, uppermost in our action plans," Mayorkas said, speaking with the German Marshall Fund of the United States about ransomware.
He continued: "The challenge it presents is its prevalence, because they attacked a software that is omnipresent, and then there's a vulnerability that has been exposed and others can jump in in the exploitation of that vulnerability and really multiply the harm."
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
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