Obama Says U.S. Data Systems Under Constant Attack

[Old Coot]

Source: Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Friday the nation's digital infrastructure is under near constant attack and confirmed he will create a White House office for cybersecurity, but offered few details of his strategy to counter threats to U.S. data systems.

Mr. Obama convened government officials and corporate executives at the White House for a formal announcement of his decision to name a cybersecurity czar, who will effectively serve two masters. The official will be on the staff of both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

The threat from hackers to critical data systems is among the "most serious economic and national security challenges" facing the U.S. today, Mr. Obama said.

<snip>

Mr. Obama said he will personally pick the new cyber chief, in recognition "of the critical importance" of the job. But he didn't say who would get the post.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124362745408767285.html

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Just what we need in Washington, another "czar".

[ixion]

1. yeah, we don't need another czar

to add to the police state BS we've got already.

[merwin]

8. This is the one Czar we really do need.

The last administration put all of these systems in place with nobody to oversee security... as bad as it is for them to have your info, would you like everyone else to have it too?

[blueclown]

2. Thanks for keeping us safe, Mr. President

Or is keeping us safe™ the exclusive demain of Boosh and Darth? :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[NYC_SKP]

3. Maybe we should wait until there's a cyber 911, then appoint a czar?

What's wrong with being proactive and finding someone to manage the very real threats to networks?

I don't trust the FBI or CIA to manage that, it's not in any agency job description, AFAIK.

:shrug:

[Jeep789]

4. Actually data theft is a serious concern. nt

[realisticphish]

5. I don't know

obviously czars have acted poorly before, but the concept really makes a lot of sense. It creates an official that bridges between many departments which normally would be unwieldy if they tried to work together. Something like data security is going to involve the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD, DOJ, and a lot of other offices related to information technology.

This stuff needs fast reaction, and as long as their jurisdiction covers only federal information systems, I don't see a big problem

[lapfog_1]

6. US-CERT and CERT/CC (Carnegie Mellon)

have both served the IT infrastructure people well in the past.

As someone that was once assigned to find and reverse engineer the Morris Worm back in 1988, I'm glad to see that Obama is taking this seriously.

[steven johnson]

7. This is a BFD! nt