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Eric Swalwell

 
Eric Swalwell Image
Title
Representative
California's 14th District
Party Affiliation
Democrat
2023
2024
Social Media Accounts
Twitter
: @
RepSwalwell
Instagram
: @
repswalwell
Youtube
: @
ericswalwell
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Representative Offices
Address
20990 Redwood Road
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Castro Valley CA, 94546
Phone
510-370-3322
News
09/26/2024 --healthcareitnews
In testimony before the United States House of Representatives on Tuesday, Adam Meyers, senior VP of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, apologized for the worldwide technology outage this past summer that disabled millions of Microsoft Windows machines across healthcare and other industries.In his appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee's subcommittee on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection, Meyers answered lawmakers' technical questions and provided assurances about updated protocols.Though some subcommittee members acknowledged the company's "humility" in addressing the error after the incident, they asked pointed questions about what the company has done since to ensure it's not repeated.WHY IT MATTERSRepresentative Eric Swalwell, D-California, co-chair of the subcommittee, reiterated the need for a high degree of assurance that CrowdStrike will employ rigorous quality assurance processes."A global IT outage that impacts every sector of the economy is a catastrophe that we would expect to see in a movie," and one perpetrated by a malicious nation adversary, said Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee."To add insult to injury, the largest IT outage in history was due to a mistake," one that left many Americans and allies globally unable to call 911, grounded while traveling or their healthcare delayed with scheduled medical procedures canceled, he said."We have undertaken a full review of our systems and begun implementing plans to bolster our content update procedures so that we emerge from this experience as a stronger company," Meyers assured in his testimony.CrowdStrike Falcon uses artificial intelligence and machine learning models to act on the latest advanced cyber threats and then pushes out content updates to its customers so their systems will recognize those threats, and defend against them. In Crowdstrike's External Technical Root Cause Analysis, dated August 6, the company outlined its findings and mitigations to ensure that the error – which Green pointed out shutdown 8.5 million devices and caused $5.4B in losses – is not repeated.A key item that Meyers addressed during the 90-minute session is the now staged deployment of such updates to minimize widespread failures – such as system crashes.Content updates "that have passed canary testing are to be successively promoted to wider deployment rings or rolled back if problems are detected," Crowdstrike said in the analysis, which Meyers described for lawmakers as concentric rings.Green acknowledged that Crowdstrike has "shown the right attitude," since the incident, but he wanted to know if artificial intelligence initiated the update. It did not, Meyers explained.Congressman Mike Ezell, R-Mississippi, asked why a manual solution was required to get systems back up and running given the dearth of skilled workforce in many areas – such as in his rural district. Meyers said that while he drove 10 hours to get a customer back up and running, the bulk of the recovery came when Crowdstrike deployed an automated process the following day.Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, wanted to know, "Where exactly did [the Content Validator] fail?""The validator itself has been in place for over a decade and we've released 10-12 of these updates every day," Meyers explained. "It tested clean, or good, and that's why it was allowed to roll out," Meyers said, which was explained as a logic error in the company's August 6 analysis. But, he said a rule with faulty logic that caused the sensor to fail would now be detected under Crowdstrike's revised procedures.THE LARGER TRENDThe faulty update pushed to Windows early that Friday morning in July caused millions of computers to freeze on the infamous "blue screen of death," disrupting care delivery at hospitals, health systems and medical practices in the U.S. and worldwide.Providers began working manually to provide patient care in the absence of access to electronic health records and other mission-critical IT systems. While most affected healthcare organizations recovered from the CrowdStrike outage within days, the incident highlighted how third-party technology disruptions can impact patient care."This incident demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem – global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors and customers," Microsoft acknowledged in a statement July 20.In a July contributed piece for Healthcare IT News, Christopher Frenz, information security officer and AVP of IT Security at Mount Sinai South Nassau, said the CrowdStrike outage should serve as a wakeup call for health system IT and security leaders: Security controls don’t just fail in major events, but are always at risk. That's why hospitals and other providers need to invest in security architectures that provide control resiliency, he said.ON THE RECORD"On behalf of everyone at CrowdStrike, I want to apologize," Meyers said in his statement to lawmakers. "We are deeply sorry this happened and are determined to prevent it from happening again. We appreciate the incredible round-the-clock efforts of our customers and partners who, working alongside our teams, mobilized immediately to restore systems and bring many back online within hours."I can assure you that we continue to approach this with a great sense of urgency," he added.Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.Email: [email protected] IT News is a HIMSS Media publication. Enterprise Taxonomy:
09/26/2024 --salon
Trump — realizing he has nowhere to hide — looks to disrupt
09/19/2024 --axios
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is not ruling out kicking certain House Republicans off of committees if Democrats retake the House majority.Why it matters: It's something the Democratic leader hinted at after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appointed Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) to the House Intelligence Committee."To be continued," Jeffries replied cryptically when asked during a press conference Thursday whether he would kick Perry and Jackson off the Intelligence panel and whether Democrats may exclude other Republicans from committees. Johnson's appointment of Perry and Jackson to Intel prompted bipartisan backlash due to the FBI's seizure of Perry's phone and allegations of workplace misconduct against Jackson from his time as White House physician.The intrigue: One senior House Democrat told Axios they expect Jeffries to — at a minimum — boot Jackson and Perry from the Intelligence panel.In June, Jeffries called the picks "frightening" and said, "If the American people give us the opportunity to govern with the gavels in November, we can assure you that a different decision would be made."As speaker, Jeffries would have the ability to unilaterally reject any Republican picks for the Intelligence Committee.Zoom out: Any move to kick Republicans off committees would be a continuation of a tit for tat that has roiled the last two congressional terms.The Democratic-led House voted in 2021 to strip all committee assignments from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).When Republicans took control in 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) booted Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from Intel, with the House also voting to kick Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) off the Foreign Affairs Committee.Yes, but: Some Democrats, while infuriated at the bomb throwers on their committees, would prefer to pump the breaks on the back-and-forth dynamic.House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) lamented Greene's chaotic influence on his panel in an interview with Axios, but said he is "not interested in" kicking her off."Republicans kind of set a lower precedent, lower bar this Congress," Raskin argued. "I'm hoping we can elevate the quality of our political discourse a little bit."
09/18/2024 --rollcall
Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, right, and Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., attend the House Judiciary Committee hearing titled “The Biden-Harris Border Crisis: Victim Perspectives” on Sept. 10.
09/11/2024 --berkshireeagle
"Once upon an evening dreary, while my eyes were getting bleary, I thought maybe I should hear the big debate of '24."
09/10/2024 --express
Democratic representative Eric Swalwell confronted Republican Jordan for posting the fake image after the false claim that Haitian immigrants are 'eating people's cats.'
09/10/2024 --kron4
Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance defended himself on Tuesday against criticism over his amplification of false claims that Haitian immigrants had abducted and eaten others’ pets in Springfield, Ohio. Vance, who is a senator from Ohio, said in a post on X that his office has received “many inquiries” in the past few weeks from [...]
09/06/2024 --nypost
NY Post readers discuss Meta’s oversight board ruling that the slogan “from the river to the sea” isn’t hate speech.
08/25/2024 --salon
Democrats are laughing at Donald Trump and his RFK Jr. endorsement
07/22/2024 --abc7
Who has endorsed Kamala Harris for president now that Joe Biden has dropped out? Here is a list of the current Democrats who support her, and a few notable figures who haven't yet.
07/22/2024 --kron4
A number of Democratic lawmakers, governors and past leaders were quick to rally behind Vice President Harris as she pursues the Democratic Party's presidential nomination following President Biden's withdrawal from the race. Shortly after dropping out of the presidential race, Biden endorsed Harris as his successor, stating it is "time to come together and beat" [...]
07/21/2024 --abc7
President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all endorsed Harris on Sunday.
 
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