A group representing technology industry chief executives on Tuesday warned that the Bush administration has failed to follow through on its two-year-old strategy for protecting the nation's information infrastructure and offered recommendations for improving the government's handling of cyber-security in President Bush's second term.
At the top of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance's set of recommendations is raising the profile of cyber-security at the Department of Homeland Security by elevating the position of national cyber-security director to the assistant secretary level. Such a move, the technology community and some members of Congress believe, would bring stronger leadership to the division, whose director currently reports to an assistant secretary who is responsible for both cyber and physical security threats.
"There is not enough attention on cyber-security within the administration," said Paul Kurtz, the alliance's director and a former senior cyber-security official in the Bush administration. "The executive branch must exert more leadership."
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Kurtz was joined at Tuesday's event by Amit Yoran, the former director of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division who resigned in September.
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"We really have an opportunity here to address cyber-security in a more aggressive fashion," said Yoran, who was the third high-level cyber-security official to leave the Homeland Security Department in 18 months. "There is broad unanimity across the cyber-security community that we are still vulnerable and we need to do more."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44474-2004Dec7.html