[ISN] Feds To Refocus on Cybersecurity

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 00:37:08 PDT

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    Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private>
    
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56254-2003May14.html
    
    By Brian Krebs
    washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
    May 14, 2003
    
    The Department of Homeland Security soon will establish an office to 
    execute the Bush administration's cybersecurity strategy, a move that 
    may serve to blunt criticism that the agency has not devoted enough 
    resources and attention to Internet security. 
    
    Homeland Security officials have not yet named a supervisor to run the 
    office, top homeland security official Robert Liscouski said in an 
    interview today. 
    
    The new office, which the department is expected to announce next 
    week, also will coordinate government and business responses to online 
    hacking threats and other forms of cyberattack. 
    
    The department has not yet decided how many employees or how much 
    funding it will devote to the new office, said Liscouski, who is in 
    charge of protecting the nation's electronic and physical 
    infrastructures. 
    
    The Homeland Security Department includes several other online 
    security divisions, including the National Infrastructure Protection 
    Center and the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office. The new 
    office, however, will take on several new projects, including the 
    development of a cyberattack disaster recovery plan. 
    
    Former White House cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke questioned 
    whether the department's pick to execute the national strategy will 
    rank high enough in the homeland security chain of command to steer 
    the development of cybersecurity policy. 
    
    "No matter how good you are, many people are going to treat you based 
    on your rank and how often you can see and talk to the president and 
    other important people," Clarke said in an interview. 
    
    Clarke, who left the administration in January, has criticized the 
    administration for failing to appoint a high-level official to focus 
    exclusively on Internet security. His deputy, Howard Schmidt, resigned 
    last month after an unsuccessful bid to get Homeland Security 
    Secretary Tom Ridge to create a high-ranking cybersecurity czar 
    position. 
    
    Since then, many critics in the business and private sector have 
    expressed doubt that the administration would take any more 
    high-profile action on cybersecurity, but Liscouski said that the 
    cybersecurity office would show that the Homeland Security Department 
    is serious about protecting the Internet from online hackers and 
    terrorists. 
    
    "This (new office) will help put feet to the national strategy," he 
    said. 
    
    Greg Garcia, vice president for information security at the 
    Information Technology Association of America said he worries that 
    whoever is picked will lack sufficient power to get cybersecurity 
    treated as a priority issue. 
    
    "What's most important is that there be an individual (within the 
    department) who wakes up every morning thinking about how to secure 
    the U.S. information infrastructure, a central figure to whom we in 
    industry can look for coordination and partnership," he said. "If that 
    is what is being envisioned, we would support that, provided this 
    person has the authority, budget and staff to really make an impact." 
    
    He added that it will take, "a lot of people putting their heads 
    together to figure out what kinds of programs we can put in place to 
    make the strategy more than just a document produced with great 
    fanfare and tossed aside," Garcia said. 
    
    
    
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