[infowar.de] USA: IT-Industrie besorgt wegen Auflösung des Critical Infrastructure Protection Board

[Ralf Bendrath <bendrath -! - zedat - fu-berlin - de>]

Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/030303td1.htm

Elimination of cybersecurity board concerns tech industry

By Bara Vaida
National Journal's Technology Daily 
March 3, 2003 

An executive order that President Bush issued on Friday shifted a
portion of the White House's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board
to the Homeland Security Department, leaving high-tech groups unsure
who in the administration will specifically oversee cybersecurity.

The board, which drafted the national cybersecurity strategy, and the
position of White House special adviser on cybersecurity were
officially dissolved, spurring high-tech representatives to furiously
lobby the administration to ensure that one individual will be
specially tasked to work on cybersecurity.

"We got assurances that cybersecurity remains a priority ... but it
isn't clear as of today who will be in charge," said Harris Miller,
president of the Information Technology Association of America, who
noted that the "Slammer" computer worm recently caused $1 billion in
damage to the economy and that hackers last month used the Internet to
steal credit-card information on 8 million individuals. "More so than
ever before, we need a strong advocate for cybersecurity in
Washington, D.C."

Tiffany Olson, who has been deputy chief of staff at the board, said
its operations and implementation portions are being shifted to the
information analysis and infrastructure protection division in the
Homeland Security Department. The board is to be merged with the FBI's
National Infrastructure Protection Board, the Commerce Department's
Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, the General Service
Administration's FedCirc and several other small agencies focused on
physical and cybersecurity.

Olson said the new division would be in charge of implementing the
national cybersecurity plan and will serve as the "focal point" on
cybersecurity in the government. "We believe that the special adviser
role will be moved to [the department], but it won't disappear," she
said.

Cybersecurity policy will continue to be coordinated by the White
House within the new Homeland Security Council, which was created to
replace the White House Office of Homeland Security, she said. The
council is a "peer" group to the existing National Security Council
and is structured like that entity, Olson said, adding that there will
be "a group of experts" at the Homeland Security Council focused on
both physical and cyber infrastructure policy.

Richard Clarke was Bush's cybersecurity adviser from October 2001
until he left the post last month for the private sector. Howard
Schmidt replaced Clarke in the interim, but it is not clear what job
Schmidt will take in the administration. Olson said "no individual
positions have been identified at this point."

Mario Correa, director of Internet and network security policy at the
Business Software Alliance, said that while the cybersecurity
adviser's position remains unclear, the industry will continue to
lobby the administration about the "wisdom" of having one person with
the ear of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to focus on
cybersecurity.

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