“Rather than assess the impact of NIST’s actions in a fair, factual, and objective manner, this statement unnecessarily casts doubt on NIST’s intentions and priorities,” the NIST response, attributed to Acting Director Craig Burkhardt, said. “The Draft Report is replete with language that goes beyond objective, factual evaluation.”
Industry response
However, said some observers, while the AG report was accurate, it missed the bigger picture.
“The backlog is getting all the attention, but underneath it, this is a money story. CISA was covering close to half the NVD’s funding and then walked away from it, and NIST’s lab budget got cut on top of that. You can’t pull that kind of money out of something this important and then act surprised when it breaks,” said Jeff Williams, CTO at Contrast Security.