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Obama Taps Bush Aide to Review Federal Cybersecurity Efforts

President asks Melissa Hathaway, who led multiagency security initiative launched by Bush, to recommend changes in existing programs

By Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld

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Tom Kellermann, another member of the CSIS commission, also expressed satisfaction about Hathaway's involvement in the review and the possibility that she will take the lead on cybersecurity issues afterwards. He said that Hathaway has a keen understanding of the international nature and scope of the cybersecurity problem and the nexus that exists between cybercriminals and unfriendly governments.

Kellermann, who is vice president of security awareness at Core Security Technologies, a Boston-based vendor of security testing tools, added that he hopes the cybersecurity job eventually will be elevated "to a higher level" that of a special adviser who would report directly to Obama.

John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner Inc., agreed that Hathaway's choice to lead the cybersecurity review is a good one but said that her previous work on the CNCI could be somewhat problematic. While the initiative has some good points, the effort is well behind private-sector norms in dealing with issues such as intrusion prevention and detection, Pescatore said.

He also thinks that the CNCI is weighted too heavily toward building centralized "situational analysis" capabilities, and that its combined antiterrorism surveillance and infrastructure protection goals are too broadly focused. "I don't think it's a very good model for how the government should move forward," he said.