Dive Brief:
- To help build up its cyber defense, the White House plans to hire its first chief information security officer, The Guardian reports.
- Housed in the Office of Management and Budget, the appointed official will coordinate cybersecurity efforts across federal agencies. They expect to fill the role in two to three months.
- Officials said the new federal CISO will focus mainly on ensuring federal workers have strong cyber hygiene to improve computer security.
Dive Insight:
Appointing a federal CISO is long overdue, especially considering the rash of data breaches at federal agencies.The CISO works to improve computer security practices, take steps as simple as making sure security flaws are patched and mandating two-factor verification during log, according to The Guardian report.
Appointing a new CISO further proves that the White House is making cybersecurity a priority.
The announcement came the same day the Obama administration released its 2017 budget, calling for $19 billion to support a "broad-based cybersecurity strategy" to help secure the government, critical infrastructure and "important technologies."
The U.S. federal government has been grappling with a number of data security challenges. Last year, the Office of Personnel Management suffered an attack that exposed names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information for 21.5 million current and former federal employees and contractors. On Monday, an anonymous hacker posted the details of 20,000 FBI employees and 10,000 Department of Homeland Security personnel online.
