Cybersecurity: The New Homeland Security?

Now that the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Gen. Kevin Chiles, is warning that the United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks “across the spectrum,” August Cole and Siobhan Gorman observe in The Wall Street Journal that the defense industry is moving intently to get a piece of cybersecurity contracts. A clear-eyed anonymous intelligence official arches an eyebrow:

“My concern and the concern of a lot of people in the government is: Are we going to dump money like we did after 9/11, or are we going to get something for the money we spend?” said one senior intelligence official. “You’re getting people who are not necessarily viewed as experts [in cyber-security] running divisions of these companies.”

Wait, you mean we wasted security dollars after 9/11??? It’s refreshing to see such a candid perspective, even if the official decided not to give his/her name.

Interesting coda: Cole and Gorman report that Boeing is hiring retired Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast as their chief cybersecurity officer. “Ms. Fast is consolidating the capabilities that Boeing has developed to protect its own massive network into a new division,” they say. Fast was the top Army intelligence officer in Iraq when Abu Ghraib became a U.S. torture chamber.