The Goals of the National Cyber Security Initiative

Even though many parts of the activities under the Cyber Security Initiative are classified, here are some of the outlined the initial goals of the initiative.

The Goals of the National Cyber Security Initiative:
* Reducing and consolidating the thousands of federal network Internet connections under the Trusted Internet Connections initiative. Reducing the number of connections to fewer than 100 could enable better control and monitoring of activities.

* Using the certification and accreditation authority of the Office and Management and Budget under the Federal Information Security Management Act to ensure that agencies establish watch-and-warning capabilities on their networks on a 24/7 basis, to improve cyber incident detection and response capabilities.

*Developing a faster process for detecting and responding to anomalous behavior on global networks, so that attacks can be spotted in a matter of minutes, not hours.

*Fully developing the potential of Einstein, the system used by US-CERT to spot problems on global networks.

Federal Tech News... [SecurityOrb.com]

Experts tackle guidance to stop cyber attacks

A group of information security analysts in government and industry plans to publish guidance in six months to identify the most effective protections against the vulnerabilities most often exploited in cyber attacks, according to John Gilligan, president of the Gilligan Group and former chief information officer of the Air Force and Energy Department. He leads the effort.

The ultimate goal of the organization, which has not yet been named, is to get the Office of Management and Budget to revise its security guidance and for agencies to incorporate those guidelines, Gilligan said Nov. 21 at a security conference sponsored by 1105 Government Information Group, which publishes Federal Computer Week.

Source: http://www.fcw.com/online/news/154505-1.html?topic=security


The Trusted Internet Connection

The Trusted Internet Connection initiative (also known as TIC, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-08-05) is mandated in an OMB Memorandum issued in November of 2007. The memorandum was meant to optimize individual external connections, including internet points of presence currently in use by the Federal government of the United States. It includes a program for improving the federal government’s incident response capability through a centralized gateway monitoring at a select group of TIC Access Providers (TICAP).[1]

The initial goal for total number of federal external connections and internet points of presence was 50.[2]

National Cyber Security Initiative will have a dozen parts

President Bush's largely classified governmentwide cybersecurity initiative will have a dozen components designed to better protect computer networks and systems, and to improve information technology processes and policies, a Homeland Security Department official said on Thursday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 — more commonly known as the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative — in January, but few details have been made public. Work already is underway on some of the initiative's 12 components, said Steven Chabinsky, deputy director of the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force, during a panel discussion at the Symantec Government Symposium.

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White House BlackBerries a no-no in China

CBS reports that the Bush administration has ordered staffers traveling to China to leave their BlackBerries at home.

Administration officials are concerned about the threat of electronic eavesdropping, even though sensitive presidential communications are always encrypted, according to CBS.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/04/world/main4318339.shtml

Bill to boost authority of security chiefs

Nextgov reports that a forthcoming bill would give federal chief information security officers more authority to strengthen network security and related policies.

The bill, to be introduced in September by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), would give chief information security officers more authority to define policies and test network defenses without working through their agencies' chief information officers, according to Nextgov.

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20080801_2626.php

Clearance reform gets a boost

new Bush administration directive could mitigate one of the sticking points that plague the federal government’s process for granting security clearances: reciprocity.

Agencies are often unwilling to accept clearances granted by other agencies, forcing career-changers — and their would-be managers — to wait out a process before they fully can move into a new job.

Executive Order 13467 mandates that other agencies accept background investigations and adjudications conducted by one agency. Once the process is in place, this order is expected to help reduce the backlog, freeing resources to focus on new clearances.

Although this is only one of numerous problems with the clearance process, the Bush administration has laid a foundation on which to begin the reforms, observers say.

Shaping reforms
The order creates two executive agents to resolve security investigation issues and set standards to apply governmentwide. It also establishes a council charged with ensuring the reforms move ahead.

“The new order finally clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the agencies involved in both the suitability and security clearance processes,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia Subcommittee.

Some members of Congress say it’s a good next step toward reforms that senators, such as Akaka and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), the subcommittee’s ranking member, have pushed for several years.

“It is my hope that the new council, headed by the Office of Management and Budget, can work closely with clearance stakeholders to put new systems into place that will cut down on the redundancies  and inefficiency that plague the current process,” Akaka said.

http://www.fcw.com/print/22_22/policy/153162-1.html?topic=security