DHS doesn't take cyberattack threats seriously, former IG says

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkc4i.org>

http://w
ww.fcw.com/article94792-06-06-06-Web

By Christopher J. Dorobek
June 6, 2006 

HILTON HEAD, S.C. -- The United States and the Homeland
Security
Department are "manifestly and woefully
unprepared" for a cyberattack,
the former DHS inspector general said.

Al Qaeda is training people and focusing on launching
cyberattacks,
but DHS has "failed to make this a priority,"
said Clark Ervin, the
director of the Aspen Institute's Homeland Security
Initiative and
former DHS IG, speaking at the American Council for
Technology's
Management of Change conference here.

DHS is on its fifth cybersecurity leader. That is an
indication of the
department's lack of focus on this issue, he said, and it
is an
illustration of how unprepared the agency is to serve as a
model for
how cybersecurity should be handled.

Ervin, who has written a book, "Open Target: Where
America Is
Vulnerable to Attack [1]," said terrorists are keenly
aware of where
the country's weaknesses are and will work to take
advantage of those
weaknesses.

He referred to one IG report that stated DHS wireless
networks were
largely unsecured. If the agency isn't addressing issues as
seemingly
simple as securing wireless, what else is not getting done?
he asked.

Ervin offered a somewhat damning view of the efforts to
secure the
country. He said the United States is safer today than it
was before
the 2001 terrorist attacks, but the real question that needs
to be
asked is whether the country is as secure as it should be
and as it
needs to be.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403972885/c4iorg




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