[Infowarrior] - DHS Cybersecurity: Learning the lessons of 9/11 for real

[Richard Forno]

Learning the lessons of 9/11 for real

By Charles Cooper
http://news.com.com/Learning+the+lessons+of+911+for+real/2010-7348_3-6111571
.html

Story last modified Fri Sep 01 04:29:15 PDT 2006

President Bush and his senior advisers rarely miss an occasion to remind the
nation not to forget the "lessons of Sept. 11." But less than two weeks
before the fifth anniversary of the attacks, the question of who should
coordinate cybersecurity remains an afterthought.

After the resignation of the first three so-called cyberczars, Congress said
the answer was to give someone real authority within the Department of
Homeland Security and let him or her direct cybersecurity policy. So it was
that in July 2005, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff agreed to create the post
of assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications.

Good idea, but one year later, why does the post remain unfilled?

A spokeswoman claims the department is "moving diligently" to narrow its
choices. But so far, she says, the department hasn't found a candidate with
the necessary technical and operational experience to lead the new division.

If so, then we're in big trouble, as this would testify to a lousy bench of
recruits available to Uncle Sam in times of emergency.

Maybe the Department of Homeland Security wasn't speaking with the right
candidates. So as a public service, I decided to browse through my little
black book and see what could be done. I dialed up a technology heavyweight
I've known for years. This person had spent years navigating the corridors
of power at the White House and possessed all the technical chops you would
want from a dream candidate.

I asked if this person was interested in another tour of duty. No problem.
All the government needed to do was ask.

But can the government pay enough to attract our best and brightest? Even if
an all-star walked through the doors for an interview, DHS told me Silicon
Valley offers financial inducements that are in another league.

In a narrow sense, that is true. So how about pointing to the Stars and
Stripes when the job interview begins? I've griped about the unalloyed
selfishness on display in many corporate boardrooms. But the greed-is-good
crowd constitutes the minority. I'm always struck by the number of generous
and highly talented people working in the technology field. A lot of these
folks are filthy rich, but they aren't only motivated by money. Many freely
give back to society because they believe it's their duty as citizens. If
the government still can't locate a fitting candidate, Chertoff should give
me a call sometime. I could provide a list of the truly qualified.

"I don't buy the argument that there are all these stock options out there
and so it's hard to get people to work for government," said Paul Kurtz, a
technology expert who helped put in place the initial strategy to address
cybersecurity when he worked for the Bush White House. "There are a lot of
people in government who could make a lot more money and yet they choose to
work in public service."

What with al-Qaida still in business, the administration's defenders argue
that the government's attention is occupied by more pressing matters. That's
just the trouble. The government has invested a lot of effort into combating
terrorism, improving airline security and finding more appropriate ways
respond to hurricanes. But that doesn't help when dealing with the unknown.

"The government's very comfortable fighting the last war but not so
comfortable planning for the unexpected," said Kurtz, who nowadays heads the
Cyber Security Industry Alliance. "You've got tunnel vision at DHS and in
the administration, where they're focused on the aftermath of Sept. 11 and
Katrina and don't necessarily have their heads up to the fact that there are
these other problems out there--and one of them is our dependence on the
information infrastructure and the fact that it's increasingly under
attack."

The Homeland Security Department was created to make sure the nation can
rapidly reconstitute itself after there's a massive rupture in our
infrastructure. We learned from Hurricane Katrina that if people can't
communicate, the effects of a disaster--manmade or natural--get compounded.
The growing fear is that the upper echelons of the government don't have the
foggiest idea about what might happen if the nation's information
infrastructure gets paralyzed.

Diffidence comes at a price.