Panelists at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday agreed that John Koskinen, the White House's Y2K guru, succeeded in making sure there was no meltdown at the beginning of the year. Now, lawmakers want to know if a similar person, like Koskinen, who had the ear of the president, should be named to handle cyber security issues across government agencies.
With continuing stories about hacking attacks on government agency Web sites, House Government subcommittee on government management and information technology chairman Steve Horn, R-CA, expressed frustration with the administration that there was no single leader on the issue and wondered whether a "czar" type candidate on computer security should be considered.
"Is the Koskinen model good with this cyber security?" Horn asked a panel of Clinton administration and computer experts at a hearing Thursday.
While agreeing leadership is needed, the panelists were unsure whether the "Koskinen model" would work. John Tritak, director of the administration's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO) said Congress and the White House would have to carefully evaluate the circumstances surrounding the success of Koskinen before deciding whether a single person should be named.
"What were the circumstances that made Koskinen successful?" Tritak asked. Another panelist, John Gilligan, chief information officer of the Energy Department and co-chair of a government security, privacy and infrastructure council, said Y2K was a different situation because it was a one-time event and had an unbreakable deadline. In addition, it involved ensuring that systems were compliant rather than secure.
According to Karen Brown, deputy director of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology within the Technology Administration, cyber security issues will only worsen as the Internet becomes crucial to day-to-day life, making it increasingly difficult to keep networks secure.
Tritak noted to reporters during a break in the hearing that there isn't enough inter-office cooperation among government agencies about security vulnerabilities. CIAO has been charged with coordinating the administration's cyber security program and released its draft version of the plan in January. As part of the plan, CIAO includes a controversial measure, the Federal Intrusion Detection Network (FIDNet) which would provide a central location for analyzing data and determining if an attack on a government agency was about to take place.
Privacy and civil liberty groups have opposed the measure, fearing the plan could override basic liberties. Tritak defended FIDNet to reporters and said it was needed to foster interagency cooperation.
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