[ISN] NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to 'Grave Peril', Expert Tells Congress

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 01:10:26 -0600 (CST)
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/nsa-dominance-o.html

By Kim Zetter 
Threat Level
Wired.com
March 10, 2009

The government's national cybersecurity efforts would be in "grave 
peril" if they were dominated by the intelligence community, said Amit 
Yoran, former head of the Department of Homeland Security's National 
Cyber Security Division.

Yoran told the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, 
Science and Technology on Tuesday that although the Department of 
Homeland Security, which currently oversees the government's 
cybersecurity efforts, has demonstrated "inefficiency and leadership 
failure" in its cyber efforts, moving the cyber mission to the National 
Security Agency, as the Director of Intelligence recently advised 
Congress, "would be ill-advised" due to the agency's lack of 
transparency.

Yoran, who served at one time as CEO of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital 
arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, said a cyber program overseen by 
the NSA would be over-classified and lack adequate oversight and review, 
which is needed to gain the trust of the public and private-sector 
partners who will be needed to secure the nation's infrastructure.

"One of the hard lessons learned from the Terrorist Surveillance 
Program, is that such a limited review can lead to ineffective legal 
vetting of a program," Yoran said. "The cyber mission cannot be plagued 
by the same flaws as the TSP."

[...]


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Received on Wed Mar 11 2009 - 00:10:26 PDT

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