After much anticipation, the role of cyber security czar has been filled by none other than Howard Schmidt. Schmidt returns to service after previously being in the cyber security czar role for the Bush administration. This return to service demonstrates a change to the originally proposed position of cyber security director. Schmidt will have regular access to President Obama.
Many people have turned down the offer to become our next federal cyber security director. The biggest compliant – not enough power to create real change. But today, we are hopeful. Since Schmidt has had this position before, he fully understands the challenges and most importantly, he understands the politics of government. He also served in the CSO role in the private sector including holding this position at Microsoft. Combined with his experience in forensics and computer crime, he will provide broad experience to this role. We hope this will provide unique understanding and shape his view of the challenges in related to cyber security. He will need added courage to make some significant changes that will have an impact on the industry by taking a more realistic and effective approach to security.
Our suggestion: Stop focusing all attention and resources on known threats and acknowledge susceptibility to security loopholes, or unknown threats, that facilitate failure. We hope Schmidt moves the industry to look at cyber security in a broader context and begin to see that preparedness is not only important, it’s fundamental in addressing our objective of comprehensive security.
We are hopeful that indeed we will see change in the industry based on President Obama’s appointment of Schmidt. We also offer our full support to ensure that government agencies and enterprise alike are embracing preparedness.