White House Creating New Cyber-Command Office for Military
The White House is preparing to create a new office that would coordinate cyber defense and offense, the New York Times reported yesterday. The new office would report to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council and would manage a multi-billion dollar effort to safeguard governmental computer networks from attack. In addition to protecting government equipment, the office would be charged with securing computers that run stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions, and manage the air traffic control system.
The new office, headed by a "cyberczar," will help clear up some of the bureaucratic mess currently involved in defending the United States from the literal thousands of cyber attacks launched against them everyday. Some critics told the Times that the as yet unnamed cyberczar will be crippled because she will not have direct access to the president. Still, the move is a vast improvement over the hodgepodge of programs and operations approved by President Bush.
The Obama plan is expected to complement a program being hatched by the Pentagon which will focus on consolidating resources and programs scattered across different branches of the military, law enforcement, and spy agencies into one manageable command center. It is still unclear as to how the new Pentagon cyber command center would interact with the new White House office, since many of their responsibilities are bound to be so closely intertwined that they may be indistinguishable from each other.
President Obama is expected to reveal some of the details of the new policy and office today during a speech and in an unclassified strategy paper. The Pentagon has yet to present him with its own plans. A classified executive order signed later will work out some of the finer bureaucratic details. [From: NY Times]
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