A nice Christmas present wrapped up and delivered to the cybersecurity world. When we all started to doubt there will be a czar appointed in 2009, when all hopes were fading after months and months of delay (the initial announcement was made in May), the Obama administration finally chose Howard Schmidt to fill this position.

Schmidt is also a former member of the Bush administration and will be the leading star of the cybersecurity initiative, although experts fear the position does not come with any real power, says the Dark Reading. A little background info on the new czar:

Schmidt, who most recently served as president and CEO of the international nonprofit Information Security Forum and was previously chief information security officer at eBay and at Microsoft, said in a statement that he looks forward to bringing to the table all stakeholders in efforts to better secure U.S. networks and systems. He will work with the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

Schmidt will have to settle all differences between the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, add a side of Deparment of Defense and other federal agencies involved in related projects, and serve a over common and effective US cybersecurity posture. And all this on a not so significant budget and with not so much power over these US security giants. We all wish him best of luck!

The White House might have a bright, shiny plan for cybersecurity, but it seems unable to keep the security heads it needs to manage and further implement it. No less than the people holding key positions related to the USA’s cybersecurity have resigned in the past few months.

The trend was started in March by Rod Beckstrom, who at the time resigned from his position as head of the National Cybersecurity Center within the Department of Homeland Security. The said center coordinates the defense of civilian, military, and intelligence networks. The reason for Beckstrom’s resignation? As he stated in a letter quoted by the Register, the post was underfunded and unduly controlled by the National Security Agency.

The next person to announce their resignation was Obama’s top cybersecurity director, Melissa E. Hathway. What led to her decision was the long months of delays by the Obama administration in appointing a permanent director to oversee the safety of the nation’s vital computer networks. As the Register points out, Hathway was one of the best candidates for the “cybersecurity czar” position. The czar would hold the authority for securing networks and infrastructure that serve US banks, hospitals and stock exchanges.

The third and most recent top cat in the US government to go is Mischel Kwon, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Washington Post rumor has it that Kwon  had grown frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of authority to fulfill her mission. And it seems people in her position don’t stick around for too long, she was the fourth US-CERT director in five years.

Hopefully, the critical cybersecurity plan will eventually be implemented, without any further delays and resignations. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

The CoSoSys team attended the Provision Security Days in Brasov, Romania over the weekend. Vendor of the most innovative and effective applications for endpoint security and portable storage devices, CoSoSys was one of the event sponsors and held a presentation on critical data security, device control and linked it to the recent Obama announcement on a White House coordinated plan to prevent cyber attacks.

I’ll reproduce here one the most significant quotes CoSoSys identified in what data loss protection is involved:

“The threat to critical data systems is among ‘the most serious economic and national-security challenges’ today”

You might wonder why economic. The answer is easy: everything translates into money. Less customers, hacked bank accounts, brand trust going down the drain, it all means loss of money. A competitor getting their hands on your prototype and producing it at a faster pace means money you’ll lose (the amount you’ve already invested) and money you’ll never get.

So what does CoSoSys offer as a solution? A best of breed endpoint security, device control and DLP solution, Endpoint Protector 2009. It effectively:

• stops data loss
• prevent data theft
• stops data leakage
• keeps data safe on the road

Speaking of data theft in the office, CoSoSys also presented a video emphasizing how easily they can be prevented. Enjoy!