At a Department of Homeland Security conference today in New York, Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly ravaged Obama as weak in the face of mounting cyber threats. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Pence: White House prepping cyber strategy to counter threat Obama ignored

NEW YORK — In a fiery campaign-style speech thrashing the Obama administration's efforts at defending the country against cyberattacks, Vice President Mike Pence said the White House is preparing to unveil a national strategy to defend the nation against growing digital threats.

"The American people demand and deserve the strongest possible defense and we will give it to them," Pence promised, saying President Donald Trump "inherited" the current "cyber crisis" from President Barack Obama.


At a Department of Homeland Security conference today in New York, he repeatedly ravaged Obama as weak in the face of mounting cyber threats, saying "the last administration too often chose silence and paralysis over strength and action ... Make no mistake about it: Those days are over."

Despite Pence's promises that Trump is getting tough on cybersecurity, the administration's critics have repeatedly accused the White House of being soft on Russia even after his own intelligence officials blamed Moscow for carrying out an elaborate hacking campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has denounced the investigation led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller into Russian hacking as "witch hunt."

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Still, at the same event in New York, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen pointed out that the cyber risk facing the U.S. includes the potential for election interference similar to what happened in 2016.

"The United States will no longer tolerate your interference," she warned, referring to any foreign hackers trying to disrupt elections. "You will be exposed. And, you will pay a high price."

Nielsen and other DHS officials announced several initiatives designed to counter that threat, and other cybersecurity issues, such as an election security task force, a supply chain task force and a National Risk Management Center.

The department is moving more swiftly to counter a threat she said could affect all Americans' daily lives. "[O]ur digital lives are now in danger every single day," she said.

Speaking later in the day, Pence heralded Trump's moves to elevate U.S. Cyber Command to a stand-alone combatant command as a further sign of the administration's commitment to counter cyber threats on the battlefield.

Nonpartisan cyber experts and members of both parties have praised many of those Trump administration maneuvers to strengthen cybersecurity, yet experts and lawmakers have been widely critical of White House efforts to bolster election security in light of the 2016 attacks on the presidential vote.

Yet, Pence hailed "unprecedented" action from the White House to help secure elections, shifting blame to some states that remain unprepared. "It concerns us many states still don’t have concrete plans to upgrade their election systems," he said.

A POLITICO survey found that at least 21 states still do not have concrete plans to upgrade voting equipment ahead of the 2020 presidential election despite receiving a portion of $380 million in federal election assistance funding.