US Cybersecurity Chief Beckstrom Resigns 117
nodialtone writes with a Reuters report that Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), has tendered his resignation, citing clashes between the NCSC and the NSA with regard to who handles the nation's online security efforts. In his resignation letter (PDF), he made the point that "The intelligence culture is very different than a network operations or security culture," and said he wasn't willing to "subjugate the NCSC underneath the NSA." He also complained of budget roadblocks which kept the NCSC from receiving more than five weeks of funding in the past year. Wired has a related story from late February which discusses comments from Admiral Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence, who thinks cyber security should be the NSA's job to begin with.
Divide implementation from development®ulat (Score:3, Interesting)
The current government cyber security system is broken by design. There is no way that one super organization can make every government network in the country secure. Each department and division in the government will have different needs. The only reasonable method to do this would be to have those departments and divisions implement their own security systems while the government at a whole creates a technology/advisory branch and a regulatory branch. Sort of like the DOE/NRC to nuclear reactor safety. The regulatory branch would audit the security (and potentially fine) the highest risk government agencies while the technology/advisory branch would be a big IT desk at which each department or branch could shop.
Re:wrong (Score:1, Interesting)
Further, the NSA is the most anal organization when it comes to following USSID, the (secret) laws that restrict what they can collect. I trust the NSA more then any other government organization, now that I've worked with them.
What we need (Score:5, Interesting)
There should be a focus and funding on implementing BGPSEC and DNSSEC since this is where many of the major vulnerabilities lie, and developing new and improved encryption systems and so on. The goal being to assure the internet is a platform of freedom of expression where some cannot oppress the viewpoints of others.