When it comes to cybersecurity, there is no comparable central agency or standard protocol. I’m certainly not minimizing the severity of an infectious outbreak like Ebola, but I also wouldn’t minimize the threat of hackers infiltrating the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers databases. Data breaches that involve public infrastructure could cause harm to human life, too, and potentially on just as large a scale. The CDC’s managers are physicians and scientists with extensive hands-on medical and public health administration experience. Their current director investigated drug-resistant tuberculosis and the H1N1 virus. The CDC’s chief operating officer, whose primary responsibilities are financial and organizational operations, also has an advanced degree in public health. But technology leaders in government aren’t expected to have commensurate expertise. Sure, there are some Department of Homeland Security officials with advanced technical skills. But the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator has no formal training in math and computer science. The acting director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology—the office that just handed down the White House’s official cybersecurity framework for protecting critical infrastructure—has a Ph.D. in chemistry.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 06:03:44 +0000
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