DHS Announces HSAC Closed Door Meeting

Today DHS published a notice in the Federal Register (76 FR 81516-81517) that the Homeland Security Advisory Council will be holding a closed door meeting on January 9^th, 2012. The meeting is closed to the public because the sensitive nature of the reports being made by DHS to the Council might disclose information about counter-terrorism plans and activities; reveal intelligence information and techniques; or provide information about on-going criminal investigations.

A number of generic topics (lack of specificity will protect sensitive information) are listed in the agenda portion of the notice. One would be of potential interest to readers of this blog would that they could be flies within the secure walls; cyber-security. According to the agenda in the notice:

“The members will also receive a briefing on recent Cyber-attacks and the potential threat of an electromagnetic pulse attack. Both will include lessons learned and potential vulnerabilities of infrastructure assets, as well as potential methods to improve the Federal response to a cyber or electromagnetic pulse attack.” (76 FR 81517)

One would think that the closed door briefing would not address recent cyber-attacks that have been beat to death in the press and blogosphere. So are there new attacks out there that we don’t know about yet? Or maybe it’s just new information about old attacks? Or maybe they just don’t like airing dirty laundry in public? We’ll probably never know.