Cyber adviser leaving government

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0421/web-schmidt-04-22-03.asp

By Diane Frank 
April 22, 2003

Top White House cybersecurity adviser Howard Schmidt has announced
that he is leaving the Bush administration for the private sector as
of May 1.

Schmidt served as the vice chairman of the President's Critical
Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Board until the administration
dissolved it in March. In an e-mail message this week, he announced
that although many of the board's responsibilities are being
transferred to the Homeland Security Department (DHS), he is retiring
from public service.

"This has been no more than a two- or three-year assignment for me at
most," Schmidt said in an interview with Federal Computer Week. "It's
been a great opportunity to champion this topic that some of us have
been working on for years."

Schmidt said he already is meeting with Robert Liscouski, assistant
secretary of infrastructure protection at DHS and a longtime
colleague, to work on a smooth transfer of all the work the board has
been doing.

"Bob has been working literally overtime doing meetings" to ensure
that the relationships created by the board in government and with the
private sector continue with the transition, he said.

Concern has been expressed over the number of cybersecurity leaders
leaving government and the lack of a single official in charge of
security at the highest levels.

"We are concerned...that the cybersecurity issue is losing visibility
inside the White House," said Harris Miller, president of the
Information Technology Association of America, in a statement. "In
this case, the 'bully pulpit' opportunity to influence the development
of a truly secure cyber infrastructure and associated best practices
will be lost."

However, Schmidt said the loud central voice that the board provided
to bring attention to the cybersecurity issue is no longer necessary.

"A lot of the big work is already done from the government side, and a
lot of the work that is left is in the hands of the private sector,"  
he said. "[The private sector] will continue to have an advocate in
the government through [Liscouski], through NIST...there will still be
attention and focus."

Although he plans to return to private-sector work -- most likely as a
chief security officer for a company whose "entire brand is about
trust" -- Schmidt said he will continue to work to implement the
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, which he helped craft and
which the administration released in February. He particularly would
like to raise awareness within the private sector about industry's
responsibility to secure the infrastructure it oversees.

"I will still continue to work this issue on a national and even
international level," Schmidt said.

Several other top cybersecurity officials have left most notably
Richard Clarke, the chairman of the CIP Board, and John Tritak,
director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO). Both
announced their departures in January before the critical
infrastructure work officially transferred to DHS.

The CIAO is now part of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure
Protection Directorate at DHS, and is being integrated into a single
organization also made up of the National Infrastructure Protection
Center, the Federal Computer Incident Response Center and others.
 
 

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