The largest technology trade organisation in America has issued an open letter to President Obama urging the fast appointment of a new government cybersecurity coordinator. Skip related content
The letter points out that it has been five months since President Obama's speech in may when he announced he would appoint a government coordinator for online security as part of his national IT security plan.
The urgency for progress in cybersecurity remains, and, therefore, so does the need for the appointment of a qualified, credible, senior level official to the cybersecurity coordinator post, wrote Phillip J. Bond, president of TechAmerica.
The person should ideally have experience in both business and government he continued.
The proposed role would involve matching the security of the US critical infrastructure, around 80 per cent of which is run by private companies, implementing new standards and coordinating with security organisations around the world.
While the administration has approved spending on IT security and run the just-finished National Cybersecurity Awareness Month campaign the letter is a clear indication of unrest in the technology industry at the delay.
We observe that those that would seek to harm America by exploiting our digital infrastructure continue to increase their efforts
That is why we believe that establishing cybersecurity coordination at this point will have a galvanizing effect that would boost and focus the many federal efforts to combat cyber threats.
TechAmerica represents over 1,500 of the largest technology companies in the US and claims to be the largest technology advocacy group in the US. It has been largely supportive of President Obama and the open letter is unusual.
The letter singled out Christopher Painter, deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice for particular praise in the work done so far.
