cyber_czar
Pressure mounts for naming of a White House cybersecurity adviser with clout
April 15, 2009
Word is that Melissa Hathaway’s 60-day review of U.S. cybersecurity policy will hit President Obama’s desk this Friday, April 17. Precisely when the White House makes it public will be an indicator of how high a priority this is with Obama, who certainly has his plate full with a few other weighty matters.
A leak of the executive summary of Hathaway’s review sometime in the next 48 hours — in …More
‘Cyberinvaders’ crack into Sen. Bill Nelson’s staff PCs — twice
March 20, 2009
Cyberinvaders, as a peeved Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. called them today, continue cracking into U.S. government systems with impunity.
Nelson, who serves on the Senate Intelligence, Armed Services and Finance committees, has just issued a statement disclosing that criminal hackers twice this month cracked into two PC workstations used by three of his key staffers. No classified information was kept on the breached PCs, which were used by Nelson’s foreign-policy aide, …More
The cybersecurity mess on the White House front steps
March 16, 2009
Special to Threatpost
by Byron Acohido (LastWatchdog.com)
March 16, 2009, 7:55 AM
If President Obama thinks fixing the broken U.S. economy is a challenge, and ending the ground wars in the Middle East a conundrum, wait until he gets around to tackling cybersecurity.
Obama must reverse the abject lack of any sort of meaningful coordinated defense against intensifying and overlapping cyber attacks on U.S. citizens, businesses, schools, hospitals, governments and military from unseen …More
Beckstrom Q&A: Cybersecurity official explains how he was hamstrung by NSA
March 9, 2009
The sudden resignation of Rod A. Beckstrom, the Department of Homeland Security’s senior official tasked with unifying the federal government’s cybersecurity intiatives, bodes ill for a new age of transparency and collaborative problem-solving in government. Beckstrom was unable to maneuver around, much less partner with, the powerful National Security Agency (NSA).
In this stunningly frank March 5th resignation letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom, Director of the National …More
All eyes on consultant advising Obama on cybersecurity engagement
February 16, 2009
All eyes in the Washington D.C. security and intelligence communities are riveted on Melissa Hathaway. Tech company executives, military leaders, lawmakers and senior White House officials who track cybersecurity matters are anxious to find out what the bright, young management consultant will advise President Obama to do about making the Internet safer.
“Protecting the public Internet … is a vital part of protecting America’s national security,” says Mike McCurry, co-chair of …More
Bush administration “a disaster when it comes to cyber security”
September 7, 2008
A bi-partisan commission of cyber security experts Tuesday gave a scathing review of how starkly unprepared the Bush administration is to stop a digital Pearl Harbor: cyber terrorists knocking out our nation’s financial, telecom or power systems.
You can view a webcast of the Congressional hearing at which the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th President (what a name!) presented its findings here. And …More