[Infowarrior] - Cyber chief needs to be in White House: experts

[Richard Forno]

Cyber chief needs to be in White House: experts

     * By Diane Bartz - Fri May 1, 2009 8:08PM EDT

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090502/wr_nm/us_cybersecurity_congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

The cybersecurity chief named to battle Internet viruses and larger  
challenges facing the information technology networks used by U.S.  
companies and national defense should be based in the White House,  
experts told a congressional panel on Friday.

Cybersecurity is important enough to warrant a White House staffer  
with real authority and a real budget, said Larry Clinton, president  
of the Internet Security Alliance and one of those who made  
recommendations to the Obama team.

"It can't be just a figurehead," he told an Energy and Commerce  
subcommittee. "We tend to think it should be somewhere in the White  
House structure."

No date has been set for when, or if, such an appointment would be made.

Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and  
Technology, said his group had urged that the task of ensuring  
cybersecurity be given to the Department of Homeland Security, not the  
National Security Agency, or NSA, which is responsible for breaking  
codes and electronic spying.

The NSA, he argued, was ill-suited for the job of ensuring that the  
lightly regulated Internet was kept up and running. "I think it's a  
very difficult thing for them to handle," he said.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, noted that no witnesses from  
the Obama administration attended the hearing. "The obvious reason is  
I don't think they know yet what their policies are," he said.

A White House team prepared a still-secret study on cybersecurity for  
President Barack Obama which was completed last month.

The study addressed problems ranging from cyber-spying to fighting  
hackers organized enough to break into 130 automated teller machines  
worldwide in 30 minutes last November.

The cybersecurity review, led by Melissa Hathaway, a top advisor to  
the former director of national intelligence, was ordered by the White  
House in early February.

The report's importance was driven home earlier this month when the  
Wall Street Journal reported that cyber-spies had penetrated the U.S.  
electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used  
to disrupt the system.

A current concern is the worm Conficker, whose authors appear to have  
used it to spread another worm, Waledac, which offers fake anti- 
spyware for sale. Purchasers lose their money and download software  
that turns their computer into a spam machine.

Conficker seems to be spreading Waledac but for two weeks only, said  
Rodney Joffe, a technology expert with Neustar.

The Conficker virus was also found on 300 critical medical devices  
from a single manufacturer, Joffe told the panel. The devices, whose  
manufacturer was not named, were used for tasks like viewing MRIs.

The United States for several years has accused the Chinese and  
Russians, among others, of using cyber-attacks to try to steal  
American trade and military secrets.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Richard Chang)