Hacker Jeff Moss: Inter-agency turf war plagues cybersecurity effort
Friday, October 16, 2009
U.S. cybersecurity efforts have been fraught with turf battles and competition between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for top-flight personnel, DefCon founder Jeff Moss said in an interview with CNET News.
Moss, a professional hacker who earlier this year was appointed as a cybersecurity advisor on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, told CNET that NSA's historic role in protecting U.S. cyberspace has made it difficult for DHS to recruit people to its own efforts to protect domestic government computers.
"[NSA] generally usually win in the recruiting battles. They've got a lot of talent over there and DHS needs some of that talent and they need some of that expertise," Moss said. "So there's some sort of working arrangement being sorted out where until DHS can get their own talent pool sorted out NSA will send people over."
Moss also said the government's system for alerting civilians to a terrorist attack or other national emergency is inadequate. He suggested using Twitter, MySpace and social networks for distributing information.
The role of a White House cyber czar should also be one of a coordinator between the intelligence agencies, the military and civilian agencies, Moss said.
Melissa Hathaway, the former White House cybersecurity director, resigned in August and is now an adjunct to the Harvard Kennedy School's cybersecurity initiative.
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