Chertoff Outlines Goals of National Cybersecurity Initiative

The Department of Homeland Security has admittedly not made cybersecurity a focus in the five years since its inception, but now Secretary Michael Chertoff says it’s becoming one of the department’s top issues.

In an article on the Government Computer News website, William Jackson says Chertoff remade the remarks last week at the RSA Security conference. He cited the National Cyber Security Division and US-CERT, the nation’s primary early warning system for cyberthreats.

“The time has come to take a quantum leap forward” from CERT’s reactive capabilities, Chertoff told the crowd at the conference. That leap is embodied in the president’s joint national security and homeland security directive creating a National Cyber Security Initiative.

According to Jackson, Chertoff said the decentralized, asymmetrical nature of cyberthreats makes them particularly dangerous. Not only is cybercrime expanding, but he cited the risks of cyberterrorism capable of damage “very much on a par” with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“We take the threats in the cyber world as seriously as we take threats in our real world,” Chertoff added. The department has devoted $115 million to cybersecurity activities in this year’s budget, and has requested $190 million in the fiscal 2009 budget.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/46080-1.html