A new 60-person unit charged with addressing potential and actual security breaches on government and private sector computer systems has been created by the Department of Homeland Security.
"Most businesses in this country are unable to segregate the cyberoperations from the physical aspects of their business because they operate interdependently," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a June 6 statement introducing the new National Cyber Security Division. "This new division will be focused on the vitally important task of protecting the nation's cyberassets so that we may best protect the nation's critical infrastructure assets."
This division was created under the initiative of President Bush's "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," according to CNET.com as well as under impetus of thr 2002 Homeland Security Act. It will be run, CNET added, under Homeland Security's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.
Homeland Security's assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, Robert Liscouski, will head up the new NCSD, which will be organized into three units to identify risks and reduce vulnerabilities, operate a cyber-security tracking, analysis, and response center, and develop education programs on cyber- and other security measures, CNET said.
The Business Software Alliance praised the creation of the new division. "Study after study indicates we remain ill-prepared to defend against threats to our critical information networks--meaning a major virus or cyberattack could wreak havoc on our communications, transportation, utility, financial or other vital information infrastructure," said BSA chief executive officer Robert Holleyman said in his own statement. "We all have a responsibility to make this work," he said.
