Fergie's Tech Blog

White House Plans Proactive Cyber-Security Role for Spy Agencies

Brian Krebs writes in The Washington Post:

America's spy agencies for the first time would be tasked with gathering intelligence on threats to the nation's computer networks under a policy set to be detailed by the White House next week, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a security conference in Washington, the official said the Bush administration wants to harness the intelligence community's offensive capabilities in defense of government and civilian computer systems.

In January, President Bush signed a directive authorizing the intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, to monitor all federal network traffic to prevent attackers from breaking in and from stealing sensitive data or disrupting critical systems.

posted by Fergie @ 5/02/2008 01:08:00 PM