President Barrack Obama is expected to march out on the Rose Garden lawn Friday morning and proclaim the next cybersecurity czar—the man or woman who will coordinate and lead the defense of the U.S. critical digital infrastructure.
Some people will argue that the need for this post has never been greater. Many IT security vendors and solution providers believe we need a strong hand at this helm to protect our digital assets. Just look at the security landscape. The Chinese have penetrated our power grid. Worms roam the Internet unimpeded. Malware generation is increasing at a hype-exponential rate. And reliance on digital resources is so great that the severing of one fiber-optic cable has the potential of disrupting an already fragile economy.
A number of names have been floated for the post, but none has surfaced as the leading candidate. Even if one did, here would be my first question: “why do you want the job?”