Head Of Homeland Cybersecurity Named

ziggy_zero writes "Security software industry veteran Amit Yoran is expected to be named the new head of federal cybersecurity by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday. The DHS is also partnering with CERT to form the "US-CERT" cyber-attack coordination center, coordinating efforts to fight cyber-attacks, worms, etc."

Re:his name sounds

[nacturation]

[his name sounds] scary to me....but maybe I'm a bit paranoid.

Maybe you're a bit racist.

Interview on Frontline

[hairy moose]

For those who are unfamilliar with him, here's a recent Frontline interview [pbs.org].

Symantec getting very cosy

[Vainglorious Coward]

Amit Yoran is of course, a VP at Symantec. That would be the same company whose COO, John Schwartz, recently caused a storm [smh.com.au] by calling for laws to make it a criminal offence to share information and tools online which could be used by malicious hackers and virus writers.

Am I alone in putting two and two together and becoming alarmed at the implication?

Rip-Tech

[silconous]

Rip-Tech was one of the largest security monitoring firms in the country, I can only see this as a good thing. Besides the goverment already has moved a majority of it's firewalls over to symantec long time ago.

I remebmer when I went to the raptor training 75% of the guys there were goverment types or working on goverment contracts.

information on Amit Yoran

[kaan]

I've never heard of this guy, so I just google'd him [google.com], and found all kinds of things, including this
interview with him [pbs.org] from March 13, 2003, and this brief biography [216.239.57.104]. He is currently vice president of Managed Security Services Operations for Symantec, and previously worked for the U.S. Department of Defense Computer Emergency Response Team (DoD/CERT).

kinda nice to see that the future "Head of Homeland Cybersecurity" at least has a formal c.s. education, and some obvious real-world experience.

Amit Yoran, WP 1993

[adamy]

I know this guy. He was a classmate of mine back at the Academy. The guy is sharp. He went from West Point, the Army's academyh, into the Air Force (A handful of people do this each year). I note went out to our class list about his companies sale, which made us all quite jealous.

The thing about West Point is that it drives home a commitment to the Country (Duty, Honor, Country is the School Moto). At least we have someone who stood up, raised his right hand, and swore to support and defend the Constitution. Yes, I am sure he is a savvy business man, but he's as honest as we are going to get.

BTW Amit, is an Israeli name.