Fergie's Tech Blog

DHS 'Still Gearing Up' Response to Cyberthreats

William Jackson writes on GCN.com:

The nation faces a real threat to its critical infrastructure while the Homeland Security Department still struggles to develop the systems needed to assess and respond to those risks, the department’s head of cybersecurity said today.

“We believe there is a significant cyber-risk in this country,” Andy Purdy, acting director of the National Cyber Security Division, said at the 2006 International Conference on Network Security, being held in Reston, Va. “We can take no solace from the fact that we haven’t seen the attacks yet.”

As the lead agency for IT security, DHS is the point of contact for collaboration with the IT industry in the development of a risk management plan as part of the national infrastructure protection plan. But critics have complained that cybersecurity has been too low a priority within the department. A newly created assistant secretary position would help to address this issue, but that office has yet to be filled.

posted by Fergie @ 4/17/2006 05:35:00 PM