Rod Beckstrom resigns after 12 months as U.S. National Cyber Security Chief

Beckstrom stated in his resignation letter that the National Security Agency unfairly dominates cyber-policy and that the Bush administration failed to adequately fund the NCSC. Other recent Cyber Security Chiefs who has left this post are Greg Garcia, Howard Schmidt, Richard Clarke and Amit Yoran.

President Obama is conducting a review of our national security policy.

Sources:

• http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/09/rod-beckstrom-security-technology-security-beckstrom.html

• http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/03/10/2009-03-10_obamas_cybersecurity_chief_rod_beckstrom.html

• http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5260I620090307

• http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/After-Only-12-Months-Another-US-Cyber-Chief-Resigns/

The CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency has been Released

The CSIS Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency has released its final report, "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency." The Commission’s three major findings are:

1. Cybersecurity is now one of the major national security problems facing the United States;
2. Decisions and actions must respect American values related to privacy and civil liberties; and
3. Only a comprehensive national security strategy that embraces both the domestic and international aspects of cybersecurity will improve the situation.

You can get a PDF copy of the report here or you can visit the CSIS website.

America Continues to be Target of Cyber Attacks

America Continues to be Target of Cyber Attacks

By Kellep A. Charles, CISA, CISSP
2008-11-10

America continues to be a target of cyber attacks from both major well-funded nations as well as 3rd world countries. Recent events in the past year have illustrated this to be an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed.

For example, The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned both the Obama and McCain campaigns that their computer networks had been hacked into by a foreign organization during the presidential contest. It seemed these hackers were trying to obtain information about both candidates view on various foreign issues to use in future negotiations.

There is also a recent report that hackers had penetrated the computer networks of the White House on more than one occasion. An undetermined amount of confidential e-mails between government officials had been stolen before computer experts were able to fix the problem.

And of course last year network penetration of the Department of Defense's computer network.

Due to the nature of the attacks and information gathered, many computer experts believe theses attacks are originating from China.

The National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force confirmed that the attacks originated from computers hosted on servers located in China IP space but cannot pinpoint exactly where.

It is not exactly clear what information the Chinese are now privy too, but there is a pattern developing.

Information Security Issues and the 2008 Presidential Election

This 2008 presidential election brought many first time events to the national scene. There was the 5.5 billion dollars spent by both parties trying to get to the White House, the total number of voters that came out vote, the unforgettable long lines many voters had to wait on in order to cast their ballots. Some voters waited as long as three to four hours before they were able to vote. Of course, one of the biggest first time events was the voting in of America’s first African-American President… “Barack Obama”.

There is another first time event that has not received as much national press as the previously stated item and it deals with information security issues. The information security issues involved in this election has raised a lot of concern and should be one of the top agendas of president elect Obama. He needs to make sure appropriate processes; procedures and laws are implemented to help protect our nation’s computing infrastructure. America’s previous two presidents, Clinton and Bush (W), acknowledge there were problems in the way our nation protected the critical infrastructure and implemented controls such as The National Plan for Information Systems Protection and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). However, with our new economy and our reliance in information technology, we have to do a better job to protect it.

This 2008 Presidential election saw its fair share of information security issues. First, there was the Sarah Palin Yahoo! Email breach were a student names got access to here account via answering the security questions correct.

Than shortly after President Elect Obama won the election, hackers were sending out SPAM emails with malicious attachments asking the recipients to view his acceptance speech. Moreover, just recently, the FBI has confirmed foreign entities hacked into the computers of both Obama and McCain last summer in an attempt steal information about their foreign policies for future negotiations.

It seems like America is losing the cyber security against major powered nations as well as smaller and not as well funded nations.