[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE INVISIBLE BATTLEGROUND
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
of the
SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 16, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-26
__________
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
__________
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
CHRISTOPHER COX, California, Chairman
JENNIFER DUNN, Washington JIM TURNER, Texas, Ranking Member
C.W. BILL YOUNG, Florida BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
DON YOUNG, Alaska LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Wisconsin NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
DAVID DREIER, California JANE HARMAN, California
DUNCAN HUNTER, California BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,
SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York New York
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania NITA M. LOWEY, New York
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
PORTER J. GOSS, Florida ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,
DAVE CAMP, Michigan District of Columbia
LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas
PETER T. KING, New York BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
JOHN LINDER, Georgia DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN,
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona U.S. Virgin Islands
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
KAY GRANGER, Texas JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
PETE SESSIONS, Texas KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York
JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff
UTTAM DHILLON, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
DAVID H. SCHANZER, Democrat Staff Director
MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk
______
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development
MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman
PETE SESSIONS, Texas, Vice Chairman ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas
DAVE CAMP, Michigan DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN,
ROBERT W. GOODLATTE, Virginia U.S. Virgin Islands
PETER KING, New York BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
JOHN LINDER, Georgia KEN LUCAS, KENTUCKY
MARK SOUDER, Indiana JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida
KAY GRANGER, Texas CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas
CHRISTOPHER COX, California, ex JIM TURNER, TEXAS, ex officio
officio
(ii)
CONTENTS
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Mac Thornberry, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas, and Chairman, Cybersecurity, Science, and
Research and Development....................................... 1
The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress From the
State of California, and Ranking Member, Cybersecurity,
Science, and Research and Development
Oral Statement................................................. 2
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
The Honorable Donna M. Christensen, a Delegate From the U.S.
Virgin Islands................................................. 24
The Honorable Jennifer Dunn, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 4
The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From
the State of North Carolina.................................... 20
The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Rhode Island
Oral Statement................................................. 33
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas
Oral Statement................................................. 29
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
The Honorable John Linder, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Georgia............................................... 23
The Honorable Ken Lucas, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Kentucky.............................................. 26
The Honorable Kendrick B. Meek, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Florida........................................... 37
The Honorable Pete Sessions, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas............................................. 27
Witness
The Honorable Robert Liscouski, Assistant Secretary,
Infrastructure Protection Directorate, Department of Homeland
Security
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
WHAT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY IS DOING TO MAKE AMERICA'S
CYBERSPACE MORE SECURE
----------
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity,
Science, and Research and Development,
Select Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Thornberry, Sessions, Linder,
Lofgren, Jackson-Lee, Christensen, Etheridge, Lucas, Langevin,
and Meek.
Also Present: Representative Dunn.
Mr. Thornberry. The hearing will come to order. I would
like to welcome our witness and guests to today's hearing,
entitled The Invisible Battleground: What the Department of
Homeland Security is Doing to Make America's Cybersecurity More
Secure.
Over the past several months this subcommittee has received
a number of perspectives on cybersecurity. We have held
classified and unclassified briefings and hearings. We have
heard from witnesses from academia, think tanks, technology
industry, government agency, users, and others. Our goal has
been to deepen our understanding of the issues involved and to
gain a truer perspective on how and where cybersecurity fits
into homeland security.
Now, today, we will hear a progress report from the new
Department of Homeland Security.
From the first bills introduced in Congress to create a
Department of Homeland Security, cybersecurity was one of those
critical elements that was given to the new department, one of
the functions where a number of government agencies would be
brought together with greater emphasis and broader
responsibilities. It was clear that if we were really going to
modernize and strengthen Homeland Security, cybersecurity had
to be a part of it.
The final legislation, in fact, did that. It did not set
cybersecurity apart, as some proposed, but included it as one
of the critical infrastructures placed under the Directorate
for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection.
Since the Department began operations in March this year,
it has brought some key people on board, although sometimes it
has seemed to have taken a while. In June, it announced the
creation of a National Cybersecurity Division; just yesterday a
director was announced for that division. Yesterday, also, an
emergency response partnership with Carnegie Mellon University
and a US-CERT was announced. So significant steps have been
taken.
In its strategy, released in February, the administration
acknowledged that cyberspace is the nervous system of the other
infrastructures, the control system of the country. Thus, the
healthy functioning of cyberspace is essential to our economy
and our national security.
In our hearings so far, we have heard that cyber attacks
are growing in number and complexity and in severity of the
consequences. The recent bout with viruses and worms have shown
that once they are launched, they are not easily contained; and
as recently as last week, our hearing on the recent blackouts
have shown again the interconnectiveness of various
infrastructures. And yet there has been a lingering concern
that cybersecurity has not been given the priority it deserves
from the Department.
Today, we are ready to hear from the administration on some
answers to these important questions, such as: Where are we in
implementing each of the five priorities contained in the
national strategy;
What can and should the Federal Government do to require or
encourage better security for all of the IT infrastructure
which is in private hands; and
What about the human element where we have received
testimony that up to two-thirds of the problems that are
created are created by the interface of human beings with
technology?
In today's world, our computers and cyber networks are not
just a place to do business and conduct research and
communicate with our friends. Cyberspace is an invisible
battleground that we must secure and defend, for attacks are
being launched against us every day attacks against the central
nervous system of the country and against our economy and our
security. We must be ready. And today we hope to hear from our
witness that we are in better shape than we have been in the
past.
Before we turn to our witness, I am going to yield to our
distinguished ranking member, my partner in this effort, Ms.
Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, for holding
this hearing and for your continued outstanding leadership of
this committee.
I think the chairman did a great job in summarizing the
work that this subcommittee has done to date. All the members
of the subcommittee have taken the time to study this
incredibly complex set of issues involving cybersecurity, and
we certainly know more now than we did when we began our
endeavor.
I think all of us agree that the Nation's cyber
infrastructure remains vulnerable and that the Federal
Government must provide leadership to better secure our systems
in both the public and private sectors. My concerns about the
Department of Homeland Security are that it is not providing
sufficient leadership in the cyber arena, particularly in the
following five areas:
Reducing vulnerabilities: The Department is tasked with
reducing vulnerabilities to government in critical asset
computers as well as responding to cyber incidents. The number
of cyber attacks and resulting damage, however, continues to
increase. This past August was the worst ever for computer
viruses. The Blaster, Welchia, and SoBigF viruses, along with
other attacks, caused more than $32.8 billion in economic
damages according to one digital risk assessments company.
Two, coordination: Is the National Cybersecurity Division
coordinating with the private sector, other government
agencies, and State and local governments to identify
vulnerabilities? Has the NCSD begun a national risk assessment?
If so, when will it be complete? I am concerned that the
Department is not providing quick leadership in this area.
Departures from the administration: In the last 6 months
the most senior Bush administration cyber officials have left
the government. These individuals include Richard Clarke, the
Special Advisor to the President for Cybersecurity; Howard
Schmidt, the Vice Chair of the President's Critical
Infrastructure Board, and Clarke's replacement; Ron Dick, the
Director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center; and
John Tritak, Director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance
Office. I am concerned about these departures and that the
National Cybersecurity Division may lack sufficient personnel
and resources to operate effectively.
Cyber priorities at DHS: Clearly, as the chairman has
mentioned, cybersecurity is enormously important to the
infrastructure of the Nation. I am worried that cybersecurity
has been demoted in importance in the administration with the
lead official for cyber issues reduced from a Special Advisor
to the President, working in the White House, to a directorship
very deep within the Department of Homeland Security. The
Nation's cyber chief must have both the access and resources to
do the job, the cyber chief at DHS.
It took the Department over 3 months to announce its choice
for a leader of the NCSD. This delay is troublesome, and I am
curious as to why it took the Department so long to settle on a
candidate. I am also concerned about the number of other jobs
that seem to be empty and vacant within NCSD, how many desks
are empty. Is there anyone there to answer the phone?
With these concerns in mind, I am very encouraged by the
person chosen to lead the NCSD. Mr. Yoran currently serves as
the Vice President of Managed Security Services Operation at
Semantech Corporation, the Internet security firm headquartered
in Cupertino, California, near my home.
I am very familiar with the work of Semantech. It is one of
the true bright spots in Silicon Valley, and its CEO, John
Thompson, is a talented and thoughtful leader. I am hopeful
that our new guy will provide needed leadership at the NCSD,
and once he is on the job, I am going to tell him that he must
candidly tell the chairman and me if he has the access and
resources needed to accomplish his mission. If he is unable to
do his job, Secretary Ridge should expect to hear from me and,
I think, the chairman directly.
As you can see, we have many concerns about the cyber
program of the Department of Homeland Security. I am pleased
that we finally today will hear directly from the top official
at DHS on our efforts. And the Assistant Secretary for
Infrastructure has served as the acting chief since it was
established on June 6, so I am sure he will address the
concerns that I have raised; and I hope he will be able to
reassure me that cybersecurity is, in fact, a priority at the
Department.
I thank the chairman for yielding.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank the gentlelady.
Without objection, the distinguished vice chair of the full
committee will sit with the subcommittee today, and the Chair
would yield to the gentlelady from Washington for any opening
statement she would like to make.
Ms. Dunn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Liscouski, I am looking forward to your testimony.
Thank you for joining us here today. We are eager to learn
about the Department of Homeland Security's most recent
efforts, in fact, in June of this year to protect an important
part of our Nation's critical infrastructure, our cyber
systems.
In the wake of September 11, the leaders of this Nation
have realized that securing our homeland against terrorist
attacks also means that we need to think creatively about where
our targets might be. We have visual reminders of many targets
every single day. When we board an airplane, when we drive over
a bridge, when we have our bags searched at football games.
But we also have targets that are far less visible. The
power grid is one such example. Cyberspace is another. And that
is why we are here today.
Your division, Mr. Liscouski, faces no small task. Securing
cyberspace is an international issue, something I realized with
greater awareness this summer when I addressed a group in
London on cybersecurity, and was very happy to learn how
involved the people of the British Government are in making
sure we get this right.
Also, we know that a cyber attack from overseas cannot be
intercepted at the border, or at least is very difficult to be
intercepted at any border, since there are no borders in the
cyber world.
This issue is also one that requires intense partnership
with the private sector. The key to achieving a desired level
of cybersecurity is utilizing and supporting the relationships
that we have formed with the private sector, those on the
ground doing research and development. Companies like
Microsoft, which I represent here in the United States
Congress, have realized that many of its priorities in business
are in line with our Homeland Security priorities here in
Congress. We are all working to prevent a situation where
critical technological infrastructure is brought down.
This committee has spent a significant amount of time
looking into the successful public-private and cross-industry
partnerships that already exist. I hope the Department
continues to work closely with the private sector to reach a
clear understanding of what a safe network system looks like.
As the Department works to protect America's technological
infrastructure, it also must keep in mind the interconnectivity
these cyber connections have with the world's financial
markets, transportation and communications systems.
I am very happy the Department is taking this charge
seriously, and I look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank the gentlelady. Does any other member
wish to offer an opening statement at this time?
Without objection, any member may submit an opening
statement for the record.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development
Thank you Chairman Thornberry for holding this hearing and for your
continued outstanding leadership of this subcommittee.
Chairman Thornberry did a terrific job in summarizing the work that
this subcommittee has done to date. All Members of this subcommittee
should be commended for taking the time to study the incredible complex
set of issues involving cybersecurity.
We have learned a lot since this subcommittee first met at the
beginning of the year. I think all would agree that our nation's cyber
infrastructure remains vulnerable, and that the federal government must
provide leadership to better secure our systems in both the public and
private sector.
My concerns about the Department of Homeland Security are that it
is just not providing sufficient leadership in the cyber arena,
particularly in the following five areas.
Reducing Vulnerabilities: The Department is tasked
with reducing vulnerabilities to government and critical asset
computers, as well as responding to cyber incidents. The number
of cyber attacks, and resultant damage, however, continues to
increase. This past August was the worst month ever for
computer viruses. The Blaster, Welchia, and SoBig.F viruses,
along with other attacks, caused more than $32.8 billion in
economic damages, according to one digital risk assessment
company.
Coordination: Is the National Cyber Security Division
(NCSD) coordinating with the private sector, other government
agencies, and state and local governments to identify
vulnerabilities? Has the NCSD begun a national risk assessment?
If so, when will it be complete? I am very concerned that the
Department is just not providing leadership in this area.
Bush Administration Departures: In the last six
months, the most senior Bush Administration cyber officials
have left the government. These individuals include Richard
Clarke, the special advisor to the president for cyber
security; Howard Schmidt, the vice chair of the president's
critical infrastructure board and Clarke's replacement; Ron
Dick, the director of the National Infrastructure Protection
Center; and John Tritak, director of the Critical
Infrastructure Assurance Office.
I am very concerned about these departures and that the National
Cyber Security Division may lack sufficient personnel and resources to
operate effectively
Cyber priorities at DHS: Clearly, cyber security has
been demoted in importance in the Administration with the lead
official for cyber issues reduced from a special advisor to the
President working in the White House, to a Directorship buried
deep within the Department of Homeland Security. The nation's
cyber chief must have the both the access and resources to do
the job.
Cyber Chief at DHS: In addition, it took the
department over 3 months to announce its choice for a leader of
the NCSD. This delay is troublesome, and I am curious as to why
it took the department so long to settle on a candidate. I am
also concerned about the number of other jobs that need to be
filled within the NCSD. How many desks are empty? Is there
anyone there to answer the phone?
With these concerns in mind, I am very encouraged by
the person chosen to lead the NCSD. Mr. Amit Yoran currently
serves as the Vice President of Managed Security Services
Operations at Symantec Corporation, the internet security firm
headquartered in Cupertino, California. I am very familiar with
the work of Symantec. It remains one of the true bright spots
in Silicon Valley, and its CEO, John Thompson is a talented and
thoughtful leader.
I am hopeful that Mr. Yoran will provide needed
leadership in the NCSD. Once he in on the job, I am going to
tell him that he must candidly tell me if he has the access and
resources needed to do his job. If he is unable to do his job,
Secretary Ridge should expect to hear directly from me.
As you can see, I have many concerns about the cyber program at the
Department of Homeland Security. I am pleased that we finally get to
hear directly from a top official at DHS today on its efforts. Robert
Liscouski, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, has
served as the acting chief of the National Cyber Security Division
(NCSD) since it was established on June 6, 2003.
I hope that Mr. Liscouski will address my many concerns and
reassure me that cyber security is in fact a priority at the Department
of Homeland Security.
Prepared Opening Statement of the Honorable James Langevin, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Rhode Island
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome Assistant
Secretary Liscouski, and express my appreciation for your willingness
to come here for what I expect will be a very informative and
productive hearing. We have heard so much from both the private and
academic sectors about the state of information security and their
hopes and fears about the Department of Homeland Security's plans, and
now we can find out about those plans directly from the source.
Mr. Chairman, my greatest concern by far is the fact that no
information has been forthcoming from DHS until now. While I am pleased
to finally get the chance to discuss how information security fits into
the overall plan for critical infrastructure protection, I must express
my disappointment at how long it has taken.
I believe it is the duty of this Subcommittee to determine what is
being done, and what more can be done, to safeguard our critical
infrastructure. While it is true that much of our information
infrastructure lies with private industry, that should in no way reduce
DHS's efforts to secure and protect it.
I am especially interested to hear Mr. Liscouski's opinion on
whether or not the structure and resources being devoted to
cybersecurity at DHS are sufficient to handle the tasks for which it is
now responsible. In addition, I hope to learn what, if any, attention
is being paid to home users and their security, an important group that
is often left out of ``big picture'' views of information security.
Most importantly, this Subcommittee needs to know how DHS can best work
in conjunction with our computer industry partners and other agencies
in order to raise the bar for information security for all users.
Again, I greatly appreciate Assistant Secretary Liscouski taking
time to be here to discuss these vital issues with us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Prepared Opening Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas
Mr. Chairman, Thank you for calling this important and provocative
hearing. With the recent blackouts, and the viruses which have been
plaguing the House computer systems, our infrastructure networks--and
our dependence on them--is abundantly clear. It will be good to explore
what the Administration is doing to make them more secure.
Obviously, national security is foremost on everyon's minds these
days. As we work to improve our country's security, it is important
that we take inventory of all systems that are vital to the functioning
of the nation, and do all we can to protect them. This certainly
includes our computer networks systems that can be attacked anonymously
and from far away. These networks are the glue that holds our nation's
infrastructure together. An attack from cyberspace could jeopardize
electric power grids, railways, hospitals and financial services, to
name a few. The recent blackouts made it clear how fragile and
vulnerable our infrastructure may be.
We are all aware of the growing number of internet security
incidents. These incidents can come in many flavors: annoying attacks
through emails, involving such things as computer viruses, denial of
service attacks, and defaced web sites; or cyber-crime, such as
identity theft. Such events have disrupted business and government
activities, and have sometimes resulted in significant recovery costs.
Despite the risks, our hospitals and power grids, our
communications, our transportation systems, will probably always be
critically dependent on computers and information flow and the
satellites above us. A terrorist or other criminal tampering with those
systems could devastate entire industries and potentially cost lives.
While we have been fortunate so far in avoiding a catastrophic cyber
attack, Richard Clarke, the President's cyber-terrorism czar from last
year, I guess I should say ``two czars ago,'' said that the government
must make cybersecurity a priority or face the possibility of a
``Digital Pearl Harbor''.
This was truly a frightening prospect. On paper, it seems we are
taking bold steps toward securing cyberspace: we now have a National
Cyber Security Division (NCSD) at the DHS, and its new U.S. Computer
Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). I would like to thank Mr. Liscouski
for taking the time away from the challenges that face him at the DHS
to enlighten us on the progress the Department and the Administration
are making on this important front.
We have been working on this subject for the past year in the
Science Committee as well. One thing I have been disturbed by is the
lack of good data on the threats that face us, and the absence of a
solid assessment of the risks we face. How can we know how much to
invest, and where, if we do not know those basics?
I want to know the magnitude of the threat out there, and how
Americans are dealing with it. What is the role of the private sector,
and of private citizens, and of the federal government? Are we putting
adequate resources and energy into fulfilling that role?
I look forward to the dialogue. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. With that, we will turn to our witness. We
want to welcome, Robert P. Liscouski, Assistant Secretary for
Infrastructure Protection of the Department of Homeland
Security.
I understand this is your first opportunity to testify in
front of Congress. We appreciate your being here and you are
recognized. Your full statement will be made part of the
record, and you are recognized to summarize it as you wish.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT P. LISCOUSKI, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you and good morning, Chairman
Thornberry and members of the committee. I am pleased to appear
before you this morning to discuss some of our efforts to
protect and secure our Nation's critical infrastructure.
From the beginning of DHS, IAIP and the Infrastructure
Protection Office for which I am responsible recognized the
equal importance of protecting physical as well as cyber
assets. Thus, we created the National Cybersecurity Division on
June 6 of this year. Today, I am here to give you a progress
report on where we are now and where we will be going in the
future to implement the President's national strategy to secure
cyberspace.
Mr. Thornberry. Excuse me, Mr. Liscouski, would you pull
the microphone just a little closer to you. It will be easier
for us to hear. Thank you.
Mr. Liscouski. All right.
I am pleased to announce this morning that Amit Yoran has
been formally named as the Director of the NCSD, effective
today. Mr. Yoran is a strategic thinker, a disciplined leader,
who understands the unique threats and vulnerabilities
manifested in cyberspace and is the individual who will further
accelerate our efforts in building a full NCSD team and
increasing the strength of our public and private sector
partnerships.
Building upon the formation of the NCSD, the Department has
worked to assemble a consolidated and coordinated team of
cybersecurity professionals. Despite the many organizational
and cultural challenges associated with integrating these
elements into one entity, our initial efforts have yielded very
effective positive and tangible results. The creation of the
NCSD has enabled the initial consolidation of three 24x7 cyber
watch capabilities; formulation of standardized incident
handling procedures for responding to cybersecurity events; and
the creation of a single national focal point for cybersecurity
leadership for prevention, protection, and response to
incidents.
The most recent accomplishments of the NCSD is the creation
of the National Computer Emergency Response Team or the US-
CERT. The US-CERT, in collaboration with the private sector and
leading response organizations, will improve warning and
response time to security incidents by fostering the
development of detection tools and utilizing common commercial
incident and vulnerability reporting protocols. This will
increase the flow of critical security information throughout
the Internet community.
I would like to take a moment to address our rationale
behind the decision to integrate physical and cybersecurity
within the IAIP directorate. I believe that this approach is
the correct one for three reasons.
First, cybersecurity cannot stand alone. The critical
interdependencies between cyber and physical domains demand
that we coordinate our intelligence and our protection efforts.
Second, with the creation of the NCSD, we have for the
first time implemented a single point of contact for
cybersecurity within the Federal Government that will interact
with other agencies, private security, the resource communities
and State and local governments on a 24x7 basis.
Third, though the director of the NCSD serves as a
technical and operational lead for cybersecurity issues,
cybersecurity will also be championed by Under Secretary Frank
Libutti and myself. And we are committed to the implementation
and the full funding of the NCSD as one of the top priorities
for the IAIP directorate and for DHS at large.
As demonstrated by recent events, the consequences of cyber
attack can manifest with little or no warning, on a widespread
scale, with tremendous speed. Impacts can quickly escalate
across multiple infrastructures, resulting in widespread
disruption of essential services, significant economic losses,
and potentially endangering public safety and national
security. The NCSD, therefore, is implementing its objectives
for the timely execution of three key mission areas--outreach,
prevention, and remediation.
The NCSD is aggressively pursuing an outreach agenda that
will provide education tools for children, parents, teachers,
business owners, and business operators. NCSD, through the
development of partnerships with government agencies such as
the Federal Trade Commission, nonprofits like the National
Cybersecurity Alliance and Internet service providers, will
work to establish and enhance awareness programs for all users
at all levels. We will be making announcements on our progress
in the coming weeks.
NCSD partnerships with industry, academia, and government
will be the foundation for program implementation for
protective and preventive measures to reduce America's
vulnerabilities to cyber attacks. It is crucial that we improve
existing public and private partnerships whose missions are
consistent with the NCSD.
A prime example is the National Cybersecurity Alliance
whose members have committed their time and resources to
regularly educating the home consumer and small businesses on
good security practices. Proactive response and recovery
efforts associated with the recent Blaster worm and SoBig virus
offer the best evidence of the value of partnerships. SoBig
spread faster and more aggressively than any previous e-mail
virus, affecting millions of residential business and
government computers worldwide.
We recognize a cyber attack could easily cascade across
multiple infrastructures, causing widespread, rapid disruption
of essential services and impacting our national economy,
public safety, and national security. The NCSD is committed to
closely working with other government and law enforcement
agencies, private industry, as well as academia, to help secure
our cyberspace from future and potentially more serious
malicious exploitation.
To this end, I am pleased to announce that we are beginning
to organize a National Cybersecurity Summit for later this fall
in order to assemble key industry and government leaders to
energize decisions like several key national cybersecurity
issues.
The Internet and cyber technologies have greatly improved
both the quality of life for our citizens and the efficiency
and the productivity of our business and our government. These
societal and economic benefits are not without their costs.
Malicious actors are devising new and ingenious ways to exploit
vulnerabilities in our cyber world, to disrupt our quality of
life, and threaten our national and economic security. Much
like the larger global war on terrorism, this effort will take
time, resources, dedication, energy, and hard work. But in the
few short months we have been in existence, we have made great
strides and we look forward to working with the Members of
Congress, this committee, our government partners, the private
sector, and the international community in this endeavor.
I come before you today to dedicate ourselves to this
common goal: one team, one fight, one mission, to protect the
United States of America.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today
and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Liscouski follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Robert Liscouski
Good morning Chairman Thornberry and Members of the committee. My
name is Robert Liscouski, I am the Assistant Secretary for
Infrastructure Protection and Acting Director of the National Cyber
Security Division (NCSD) within the Department of Homeland Security. I
am pleased to appear before your Subcommittee to discuss some of our
efforts to protect and secure our Nation's critical infrastructure.
Last week's observances of the two-year anniversary of the
September 11th attacks offer a stark reminder of the threats and
vulnerabilities we as a Nation still confront. The Department's
Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP)
was established by the Homeland Security Act to lead the Nation's
efforts to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from terrorist
attacks like those perpetrated on 9/11. These terrorist acts may
manifest in many forms, including physical and cyber attacks against
our critical infrastructure, key assets, and national icons. Both
physical and cyber assets have vulnerabilities that may be exploited by
our enemies. The highly interconnected nature of our infrastructure
makes these physical and cyber weaknesses impossible to separate--and
difficult to address separately. Our protection methodology leverages
an integrated physical/cyber protection approach to reduce
vulnerabilities and to optimize our response when an attack does occur.
From the beginning of DHS, the IAIP directorate which includes the
Infrastructure Protection Office for which I am responsible, has
implemented a dedicated organization committed to protecting physical
assets. The organization is called the Protective Security Division
(PSD). Recognizing the equal importance of protecting cyber assets, we
created the National Cyber Security Division on June 6 of this year.
These organizations within the Infrastructure Protection Office work
together to implement the integrated protection methodology that I
previously discussed. Today, I am here to give you a progress report on
where we are now, and what we have in store for the coming months and
years to implement the President's National Strategy to Secure
Cyberspace.
I am pleased to announce that Amit Yoran has been formally named as
the Director of the NCSD effective today. Mr. Yoran is a strategic,
disciplined leader who understands the unique threats and
vulnerabilities manifested in cyberspace and is an individual capable
of managing a diverse, highly technical organization Mr.Yoran was most
recently the Vice President for Managed Security Services at Symantec
Corporation where he was primarily responsible for managing security
infrastructures in 40 different countries. Before working with
Symantec, Mr. Yoran was the Founder, President and CEO of Riptech,
Inc., a leader in outsourced information security management and
monitoring. Before working in the private sector, he was the Director
of the Vulnerability Assessment Program within the Computer Emergency
Response Team at the Department of Defense and the Network Security
Manager and the Department of Defense where he was responsible for
maintaining operations of the Pentagon's network Mr. Yoran's leadership
and respect within the information security industry will further
accelerate our efforts in building the full NCSD team, and increasing
the strength of our public and private sector partnerships.
Since its formal establishment in June, the National Cyber Security
Division has worked closely with our partners in the private sector,
including coordinating response and mitigation of the Blaster worm and
SoBig virus. Without these coordinated efforts, the significant
economic impact of these attacks could have been much worse. In each
situation, the Department's cyber security experts demonstrated the
ability to quickly reach out to the security community, rapidly assess
emerging threats, and provide timely warnings to government, industry,
and the general public. These initial efforts were crucial--they
allowed the NCSD to establish its credibility and demonstrate its value
to the national and international cyber security community.
Since June, IAIP has been assembling a consolidated and coordinated
team of cyber security professionals. These experts were integrated
from portions of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC),
Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO), Energy Assurance
Office (EAO), and the Federal Computer Incident Response Center
(FedCIRC). Despite the many organizational and cultural challenges
associated with integrating these elements into one entity, our initial
efforts have yielded effective and tangible results. Creation of the
NCSD has enabled:
Planning for consolidation of three 24x7 cyber watch
centers;
Formulation of a standardized incident handling
procedure for responding to cybersecurity events; and
Creation of a single national focal point for
cybersecurity leadership for prevention, protection, and
response to incidents.
The most recent accomplishment of the NCSD is the creation of the
National Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). The US-CERT, in
collaboration with the private sector and leading response
organizations, will improve warning and response time to security
incidents by fostering the development of detection tools and utilizing
common commercial incident and vulnerability reporting protocols. This
will increase the flow of critical security information throughout the
Internet community by leveraging the extensive resources and brand of
the Federal Government and Carnegie Mellon's CERT/Coordination Center.
The CERT/CC is a part of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and
is affiliated with Carnegie Mellon's new Cyber Security Laboratory. A
key enabler of this partnership is the 19 years of leadership
demonstrated by the U.S. Department of Defense in its sponsorship of
the SEI, a federally funded research & development center. By
integrating capabilities from the Government (FedCIRC), Academia (The
CERT/CC), and the private sector (vendors of security products and
services), the US-CERT will provide a coordination center that, for the
first time, links public and private response capabilities to
facilitate communication across all infrastructure sectors.
Before detailing our future programs and initiatives, I would like
to begin by providing rationale behind the decision to treat physical
and cyber security on part with one another, within the IAIP
directorate. I believe that this approach is the correct one for three
reasons.
First, cyber security cannot be a ``stand alone'' effort. As I
described earlier in my statement, the success of DHS as a Department,
and IAIP specifically, depends on our ability to protect the entire
critical infrastructure against physical and cyber attacks together. We
realize the dominant components common to all 13 critical
infrastructures are physical and cyber components. To best protect the
country against attack, careful integration of both components is
required to achieve a holistic view of critical infrastructure
vulnerabilities. In fact, this view is validated by a common criticism
voiced by the private sector and security experts preceding the
creation of the Department: physical and cyber security were being
addressed by the government independently. We believe the physical and
cyber domains are inextricably linked and vulnerabilities cannot be
effectively analyzed independently. Placing both responsibilities under
one Under Secretary and one Assistant Secretary has ensured successful
integration.
Second, the NCSD will identify, analyze, and reduce cyber threats
and vulnerabilities; disseminate threat warning information, coordinate
incident response; and provide technical assistance in Continuity of
operations and recovery planning. With the creation of the NCSD, we
have for the first time, implemented a single point of contact for the
prevention, protection, and coordination of response to incidents, that
will interact with all federal agencies, private industry, the research
community, State and local governments, and other partners on a 24x7
basis.
Third, while the Director of the NCSD serves as the technical and
operational lead for cybersecurity issues, it is important to remember
that the cyber security issue will now be championed within IAIP by
Under Secretary Frank Libutti, and myself. The Under Secretary and I
have already demonstrated our commitment to developing a world-class
cyber security capability within the Department and believe the
continued implementation and full funding of the NCSD is one of the top
priorities for the IAIP Directorate. Furthermore, cyber security
research and development will be conducted in partnership with the
Department's Science and technology Directorate under the leadership of
Under Secretary Charles McQueary.
Now I would like to focus the remainder of my testimony on our plans
for building on our accomplishments of the last three months to fully
implement the operational NCSD in the coming months.
The Mission: Outreach, Prevention, and Remediation
As demonstrated by recent events, the consequences of a cyber
attack can manifest with little or no warning, on a widespread scale,
and with tremendous speed. Impacts can quickly cascade across multiple
infrastructures, resulting in widespread disruptions of essential
services, significant economic losses, and potentially endangering
public safety and national security. The National Cyber Security
Division, therefore, is implementing its objectives through the timely
execution of three key mission areas--Outreach, Prevention, and
Remediation.
Outreach
The NCSD will create, in coordination with the Office of Personnel
Management and the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
cyber security awareness and education programs and partnerships with
consumers, businesses, governments, academia and international
communities.
An effective outreach program lays the foundation for the ultimate
success of all mission areas of the NCSD. Accordingly, the NCSD
championing the implementation of awareness efforts and campaigns that
use a multi-level approach to provide awareness/educational tools for
all users; for the home, awareness tools for children, parents and
teens; customized approaches for small, medium, and large businesses;
and for government agencies. Every level of user must realize they have
an equally important role in the security of cyberspace. The end user,
for example, needs to be informed about the technical aspects of
security and about their role as gatekeepers in a larger data and
information sharing community.
The NCSD is aggressively pursuing an outreach agenda that will
target groups of citizens by providing education tools for children,
parents, teachers and business owners and operators. There are many
effective existing programs and the NCSD is developing partnerships
with government agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, non-
profits like the National Cyber Security Alliance, and the Internet
Service Providers to establish and enhance awareness programs for all
users. We are working to build on existing public/private outreach
groups to assist the spectrum of users in securing their systems
through implementation of effective security practices.
One quick example is establishing National Cyber Security Days. As
Americans change their clocks twice a year, to Daylight Savings and
Standard times, the partnership of the NCSD and the National Cyber
Security Alliance's StaySafeOnline Campaign asks consumers to use the
days as reminders to assess their own computer security. Computer
security needs to be a regular consideration when protecting a home.
Just as consumers remember to lock their doors, so too should they
remember to secure their computers. As a result of this partnership
with the NCSD many other partners in the business and government
communities are starting to design their national ad campaigns around
these two dates to further amplify this important message.
At the same time, the NCSD is partnering with other federal
agencies, including, Commerce, NSA and DOD, state and local government,
private industry, and academia to promote a well-trained IT security
workforce.
Prevention
Consistent with law and policy, NCSD will coordinate closely with
the Office of Management and Budget and NIST regarding the security of
Federal systems and coordinate with Federal law enforcement
authorities, as appropriate. NCSD will leverage other DHS components
including the Science and Technology Directorate, the U.S. Secret
Service and the Department's privacy officer.
To achieve its mission, the NCSD is working with State and local
governments, and the private sector to conduct infrastructure
vulnerability field assessments, while providing the best and most
cost-effective prevention and protection strategies for ``at risk''
infrastructure facilities, assets, and personnel. Due to the diversity
of the critical infrastructure, cyber protection strategies for each
sector must be customized based on the unique geographical and business
operating models of that sector. Due to the highly interconnected yet
physically distributed nature of our critical infrastructure,
prevention and protection strategies are prioritized based on regional,
State, and local needs and on the need for cross-sector coordination.
We recognize that collaborating with industry, academia, and
Government is a key focus of our NCSD activities. With partnerships as
the foundation for program implementation, the NCSD will coordinate
implementation of protective and preventative measures to reduce
America's vulnerability to cyber attacks. It is crucial that we improve
existing public-private partnerships whose missions are consistent with
NCSD functions. A prime example is the National Cyber Security
Alliance, whose members have committed their time and resources to
regularly educating the home consumer and small businesses on good
security practices.
With nearly all of the backbone of cyberspace owned by the private
sector, it is imperative that the NCSD strengthen its relationships
with them. Fortunately, there are mechanisms already in place to
facilitate cooperation between industry and government on cyber
security, most notably the National Coordinating Center (NCC) for
Telecommunications and its Telecommunications Information Sharing and
Analysis Center (ISAC), which are each part of the National
Communications System (NCS) and IAIP. These entities provide the
Department with direct access to leading industry operational and
security experts whose knowledge and insights may prove crucial in
managing a cyber incident. The NCSD, as part of IAIP, also helps to
support two CEO-level advisory committees--The National Security
Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and the National
Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC),--which provide advice and
counsel on national security telecommunications and critical
infrastructure matters, including cyber security issues.
By acting as a champion for creating a national and international
culture of cyber security, we aim to promote a security culture at the
CEO-level and demonstrate to corporate leaders that cyber security
ultimately promotes the resiliency of their infrastructures, protects
the interests of their shareholders and corporate brand, and preserves
value and competitive advantage for businesses that implement security
best practices.
Remediation
As I discussed earlier, the proactive response and recovery efforts
associated with the Blaster worm and SoBig computer virus offer the
best evidence of the value of partnerships. SoBig spread faster and
more aggressively than any previous email virus, affecting millions of
residential, business, and government computers worldwide. Internet
traffic was substantially affected by these two events, causing a 25
percent increase in internet traffic and infecting over 600,000
computers. It had a significant impact on cross-sector communication
and impacted productivity.
In August, when the Blaster worm surfaced on the Internet, the NCSD
issued a timely warning to security professionals, suggesting that
Internet service providers and other corporate network administrators
shut off inbound traffic to ports 135, 139, and 445 to block the
spreading of the Blaster infection. Blaster took advantage of a known
vulnerability in a Windows operating system component that handles
messages sent using the remote procedure call (RPC) protocol. RPC is a
common protocol that software programs use to request services from
other programs running on servers in a networked environment.
Vulnerable systems were compromised automatically without any
interaction from users. Through the advisory, users were instructed to
install the appropriate software patches to prevent their computers
from being infected. In the following weeks, the NCSD continued to
issue advisories warning security professionals that a variant of the
Blaster worm, dubbed ``nachi,'' ``welchia'' or ``msblast.D,'' was
proliferating.
Working with Internet security researchers and experts from private
industry and academia, the Division and the FBI uncovered malicious
code hidden within the SoBig worm on twenty master machines that was
programmed to launch a massive denial of service attack. Federal
authorities located the twenty computers infected with this variant of
the worm and asked their Internet service providers to shut down their
Internet access. As a consequence, the second wave of attacks never
materialized.
The NCSD recognizes that a cyber attack could cascade across
multiple infrastructures, causing widespread rapid disruption of
essential services, and impacting our national economy, public safety,
and national security. While this generation of worms has not yet
resulted in irreversible damage (albeit slowing communication,
overstuffing e-mail inboxes, and reducing productivity), the NCSD is
committed to working closely with other government and law enforcement
agencies, private industry, as well as academia to help secure our
cyberspace from future, and potentially more serious malicious
exploitation.
To this end, I am pleased to announce that we are beginning to
organize a National Cyber Security Summit for later this fall, in order
to assemble key industry and government leaders to energize decisions
on several key National cyber security issues. Key goals of the summit
are to--.
Produce a common threat and vulnerability reporting
protocol to enhance prevention and response capabilities and to
drive a standards-based system for communicating threats and
vulnerabilities across the Nation;
Develop a Vulnerability Reduction Initiative to
significantly reduce vulnerabilities based upon improved
evaluation standards, tools and measures for software, new
tools and methods for rapid patch deployment, and best practice
adoption of security for cyber systems across the critical
infrastructure in partnership with industry and the leading
research universities in the United States;
Create an outreach and education partnership to offer
training and awareness to 50 million home users and small
businesses in cyber security within one year; and
Formulate and ratify a National Cyber Security Road
Map that defines milestones, work streams, and metrics for
``raising the bar'' of cyber security across the United States
and identify work stream leads from government and industry.
Since its inception, the National Cyber Security Division has
delivered on its commitment to provide a centralized coordination point
for the collection and dissemination of protective measures to reduce
vulnerabilities and risks to the cyber infrastructure through
implementation of the Cyber Security Tracking Analysis and Response
Center (CSTARC). As announced in our press release on Monday morning,
CSTARC, through a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University's CERT/
Coordination Center, will evolve to a new capacity as a national
Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). The US-CERT will enhance
our Nation's prevention of and response to cyber threats and
vulnerabilities. There are currently over two hundred private sector
groups, public sector groups, and universities that operate computer
emergency response teams (CERTs) within the United States. Many of
these groups have varying levels of informal and formal partnerships
with each other and with the US-CERT. This initiative will harness this
massive capability to significantly increase America's ability to
protect against, and respond to, massive scale cyber attacks.
We view the US-CERT as a fundamental element of the DHS strategy to
ensure timely notification of all types of attacks, working toward
having, within a year, an average of a 30-minute response to any
attack. Moreover, the US-CERT will provide a coordination center that,
for the first time, links all public and private response capabilities
and facilitates communication across all sectors. US-CERT will also
lead collaboration with the private sector to develop and distribute
new tools and methods for detecting and identifying vulnerabilities in
an effort to significantly reduce vulnerabilities. Lastly, US-CERT will
help improve incident prevention methods and technologies by
identifying and disseminating best practices and working with the
private security industry to improve warning sensor data collection and
analysis.
Conclusion
The Internet and cyber technologies have greatly improved both the
quality of life for our citizens and the efficiency and productivity of
our businesses and our government. These societal and economic benefits
are not without their costs. Malicious actors are devising new and
ingenious ways to exploit vulnerabilities in those cyber systems, to
disrupt our quality of life and to threaten our national and economic
security. Our ever-growing reliance on the Internet and cyber systems
compels us to counter these threats and vulnerabilities by building
productive partnerships with key stakeholder communities in cyberspace,
improving how we share information, and developing and fielding
innovative technical solutions. As the focal point for the prevention,
protection and coordination of response to incidents, the NCSD must
achieve its mission of ensuring the security of cyberspace. We know
this will not be an easy assignment. Much like the larger global war on
terrorism, this effort will take time, resources, dedication, energy,
and hard work to succeed. But in a few short months, we have made great
strides and are excited about the possibilities that the future offers.
With the appointment of the new Director of the NCSD, we have focused
leadership to guide us forward, to forge new alliances and
partnerships, to implement new tools and capabilities, and to provide a
vision for cyberspace security.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you have at this time.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you. And I can assure you that this
subcommittee shares your goal of working together to help the
country be safer. Let me just ask one brief question before
yielding to Ms. Lofgren.
It seems as though that the Department has made several
significant announcements yesterday and today. The
establishment of the US-CERT, the naming of the Director for
the Cybersecurity Division, and now this National Cybersecurity
Summit, which will take place later this fall.
Why is it all coming down now? What has been your decision-
making process, and why are we just having these decisions
made.
Mr. Liscouski. Well, Mr. Chairman, it is a function of our
timing is, we have been working very hard since June, and as
you well know, we have engaged in a lot of other activities in
standing up the division.
One of the things I have been working hard at over the past
few months is putting the right team in place to ensure we
could actually carry out the things that we announced just
these past couple of days. So it is one.
We could have announced them, or at least our intention is
to execute on these objectives, earlier; but the framework from
which we are operating is really one in which we plan
carefully, but quickly, and then with the ability to execute.
So I am here before you today to say that our announcements
are timed with our ability to execute, not so much as anything
else, but just a function of the ability that we are working
very hard, and we have got a good plan together, and we finally
have our teams together to be able to execute on the strategies
we have identified.
Mr. Thornberry. Yield to Ms. Lofgren.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a few
questions.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, the President had a
Special Advisor on Cybersecurity, but that position has been
eliminated. Will the director of the Cybersecurity Division
have direct contact with the President or with Secretary Ridge
on cybersecurity issues? What kind of access will this
individual have?
This is kind of a nerdy subject we all know that and yet it
is very important; and it is important that the decision
makers, who are not necessarily living and breathing computer,
be contacted and be aware of the scope of the issues.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Yoran--first of all let me
explain.
Our management style at DHS is, one, a very direct one.
Working for Under Secretary Libutti and Secretary Ridge
requires one to be constantly engaged to ensure that the
leadership knows what is going on. I mean, this is a constant
dialogue we have at senior management levels, particularly as
it relates to infrastructure protection. Information analysis,
because of the very uniqueness of what IAIP brings to the
Department in terms of a function, is one which is heavily
relied upon by the senior management of DHS. So I can tell you
from personal experience that Secretary Ridge, Under Secretary
Libutti reach down into the organization at any level that they
think they need to get the answers to questions that they have,
and we are very responsive.
To that end, Secretary Ridge has been personally involved
in not just overseeing the implementation or the creation of
this division, but engaged with me in identifying the type of
leadership we need and what we need to do to be successful in
this endeavor. So if Mr. Yoran is going to have the the
pleasure, because it is indeed a pleasure to work with the
senior leadership, but more importantly the responsibility of
reporting directly. My management style, Under Secretary
Libutti's management style, is not one in which we say, You
have got to go through a, quote, unquote, ``chain of command.''
Ours is pretty much, You are the expert, you have got the con,
you take the lead, answer the questions, take the initiatives.
Ms. Lofgren. Okay. That is very reassuring. Thank you.
One of the questions I was mentioning to the chairman,
there is modeling going on around the country, university
based, and I am interested in whether the Cybersecurity
Division will be working with the Science and Technology
Directorate on modeling in simulation issues and whether cyber
threats are going to be integrated into these efforts. Can you
give us a progress update on that?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. Let me take the partnership with
S&T first because I think that is where it starts.
The Cyber Division has got a direct nexus into Under
Secretary McCrery's S&T organization, the Directorate. We have
a deputy director named in the research center in S&T. So we
are directly partnering by driving requirements in S&T that we
have identified from the field, not just from our own efforts,
but through our partnerships with State and local governments,
with the industry, with our international partners. We are
taking those requirements and driving them into S&T. That is
point number one.
As it relates to the universities, our relationship with
the US-CERT at Carnegie Mellon clearly is one example. We have
many other relationships with universities and labs to do
modeling. We have got the benefit of having the opportunity of
reaching out to lab relationships we have currently that came
over to us when we formed DHS earlier this year, so we have
already been working on computer simulations for different
types of modeling for attacks and for things that relate to
cybersecurity as well as other parts of our infrastructure.
Ms. Lofgren. Can I ask you about this US-CERT? I saw the
announcement. We have the Federal Government has been a partner
with CERT at Carnegie Mellon for many years. And how is US-CERT
going to be different than regular old CERT?
Mr. Liscouski. Well, I would like to recognize the
Department of Defense obviously for taking the initiative back
some almost 20 years ago, after the Morris worm, to establish
the CERT/CC capability. That relationship has allowed many
parts of the Federal Government to take advantage of the CERT
capabilities.
CERT, as you well know, remains one of the premier
capabilities in the world, and to that end, the partnership
that DHS is establishing is a key one for us because we are
increasing our level of financing to the CERT. So therefore we
are increasing the resources available directly to DHS, vis-a-
vis the CERT, to do things not just around the incident
response area, but also looking at establishing a malicious
code lab there, as well as other enhancements through
financing, through partnerships, through positioning people at
the CERT, working closely with them to ensure that US-CERT can
mature to a capability that is going to serve the National
Strategy for Cyberspace.
Ms. Lofgren. Finally, one of the responsibilities of your
office is to coordinate outreach to State and local
governments, and I am interested in how you are doing that. Is
there an office that is responsible for outreach? Is outreach
institutionalized? And in particular I am interested not just
in what we might think of as cybersecurity, but the physical
infrastructure that allows the cyber world to exist; and I
continue to be concerned about the level of information and
coordination between the Federal Government and State and
local, especially local police officials, in terms of
vulnerabilities that exist to the physical infrastructure.
Because we are very concerned with the viruses and worms
and cyber attack, but the model for terrorists remains some
maniac with a bomb; and so we have vulnerabilities in that area
that I am not yet convinced we have addressed adequately. And
really our first line of defense is going to be local, not
Federal officers.
So can you address that issue for me?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. And I agree with you; I don't
think we have addressed it adequately yet either. We are
working hard to do that. We have got a number of mechanisms for
outreach, and let me just articulate those.
We have a branch in the NCSD dedicated to outreach. It is
headed up by a very seasoned professional. Sally McDonald, who
came to us from the Fed CERT, has done a tremendous amount of
effort in outreach and has got a lot of experience in this
area, so we are relying upon Ms. McDonald to really take the
programs where we need to go.
We have a number of programs currently established at the
NCSD. StaySafeOnline Campaign is one of the dominant ones in
which we are using that to reach many different levels of
constituents in the cyber world. That is just one example.
We are partnering up as you may know, we have got
relationships with ISACS, the Information Sharing Analysis
Centers. There is an IT ISAC, but there is a cyber component in
every ISAC we use for outreach.
We have our advisory systems in which we put out notices
about threats or incidents and events relating to the cyber
world.
We are going to continue to use the private sector for
outreach. Our partnerships with the private sector are
absolutely key for us to ensure that we have got the right
things, the right awareness, going on because, as you are fully
aware, this problem is not necessarily just a technological
problem. In fact, most computer security professionals would
articulate that the problem is typically not the technology; it
is the implementation of proper standards and procedures to
ensure that the technology is used accordingly, patches are
made, remediation work is being done. And those are process
issues; those are not technological issues.
It is all about awareness training, so we are reaching out
using universities, using the private sector, using our own
outreach capabilities to ensure we have multilevel awareness
programs going on; and these are in development, and we are
welcoming suggestions from any of those out there, anybody who
has got an interest in this area to ensure we are doing the
right thing.
As I mentioned in my statement, we are working with ISPs to
ensure that we have got the right awareness going on for users
of broadband connections to ensure that they understand the
dangers of getting on line and in open systems without taking
the appropriate precautions, so--.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. I will reserve my other questions
for the next second round.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. I think the Chair will use the clock not
just as a guide for members, not as a hard and fast rule; and
Ms. Lofgren and I have agreed that we will have as many rounds
as members have questions, with Mr. Liscouski's indulgence.
The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from
Washington.
Ms. Dunn. I thank the chairman.
Mr. Liscouski, this committee has made it a priority to
understand how communications and information are being shared
across Federal agencies. How will the Cyber Division work
within the larger Information Analysis Division responsible for
analysis and warnings to the Homeland Security community and,
if necessary in an extreme case, to the public?
Mr. Liscouski. Let me describe first our relationship with
the Information Analysis Office. That is the IA component of
IAIP. We are tightly knit together. The IAIP Directorate,
combined of those two offices, was created with the intention
of ensuring that we had overlap of our functions and our
thinking within the structure to ensure that we always had a
very close look at the intelligence components of the threats
mapping vulnerabilities, whether they be physical
vulnerabilities or logical or cyber vulnerabilities.
And in this case, the NCSD plays sort of a unique role.
While it is not an intelligence function, it is a capability-
oriented, technical capability. And we lend ourselves to the IA
function to understand how technical exploits can be used to
conduct cyber terrorist attacks, while the IA function has
clearly got the intelligence requirements to understand how
terrorist groups may, or what their intentions may be to use
technologies to conduct a cyber attack. They are a portal to
the Intelligence Community.
We drive our requirements through the information analysis
component to ensure that they maintain that constant look and
their constant contextual piece around what we are worried
about from a vulnerability standpoint and what the Intelligence
Community needs to be looking at from an intelligence
standpoint. So we are tightly integrated. We drive
requirements. We have--the IA analysts are frequently as
knowledgeable about the technology, at least at a top level, as
our folks are to understand what the vulnerabilities are. So
when they see intelligence pieces they understand the relevance
of intelligence to a particular infrastructure component.
Ms. Dunn. Will you find yourself working with TTIC, with or
through TTIC, during any of the process?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. We would be working with TTIC,
and we do now quite actively through our IA counterparts; and
my colleague, Bill Parrish, the Acting Assistant Secretary for
Information Analysis can go into that much more deeply. But I
am very familiar with our relationships there. We use them
quite robustly.
But, again, we drive those through the IA component, ma'am.
Ms. Dunn. Do you--in your Cyber Division, do you believe
now you have adequate resources to conduct all your activities?
Are there areas where you see specific needs our committee
ought to be focusing on?
Mr. Liscouski. I think, for the present, we have the
resources we need. As you know, we are staffing up. We
currently have approximately 65 people in the division, and we
are looking to staff up to somewhere, I would say about 100 or
so for fiscal year 2004 is our plan.
From my perspective, I think we are adequately staffed. I
think we have got the resources we need, particularly with the
partnership with the US-CERT. I think downstream, as we learn
more about the vulnerabilities and particularly the initiatives
we want to take and the resource areas in the short terms areas
that we need to make improvements, we will probably be coming
back to this committee and articulating what those needs are.
Ms. Dunn. I am not seeing any timing clock. Do you have
one, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Thornberry. The green light is down in front of the
witness.
Ms. Dunn. Got it.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, we all fully
appreciate cyberspace has no borders. How will you find
yourself working with international organizations in your role?
Mr. Liscouski. The international component is a very
critical one for us. As you know, we have some informal
arrangements. We are working closely with the British
Government, with the Australians, the Germans, the Canadians.
It is critical for us to expand our relationships for
international cooperation. We are working with the Department
of State to formalize those agreements. Bilateral and
multilateral agreements are very key for us.
The national strategy articulated the need for signing for
the--I am sorry--the European convention on cybersecurity. That
is not the exact term, but we fully support that.
We need to work with the international community to ensure
that we have got uniform laws across international boundaries
to enforce violations, to ensure that we have got good thinking
about best practices.
To your point, there are no boundaries. A vulnerability in
Slovakia is as critical as a vulnerability in the United
States. If a company is a Fortune 50 company operating around
the world, we have to be very cognizant of those
vulnerabilities. We are working hard with our partners to bring
them up a level of capability, as well.
Ms. Dunn. And does that include cooperative working when
responding to something?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. The US-CERT is going to be nexus
for that capability. We are going to be using the US-CERT as a
model for CERTs around the world to--and this has clearly been
the model.
So to your point, yes.
Ms. Dunn. What about--is your division considering and in
cooperation with the private sector, considering setting up a
code of standards, best practices, that would be in place both
for the private sector, which you, in your testimony, mentioned
had something over 80 percent of all of the cyber work that we
need to be dealing with and also the public sector?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. And best practices occur at many
different levels.
We are trying to articulate identify and articulate best
practices for home users, for small businesses, universities,
big businesses. We have got to work in cooperation with the
industry to ensure that best practices are effective,
implementable, cost-effective, measurable, all the elements
that you would want to have programs to identify what the right
level of security is.
This is a big area, a big body of work, and we are
spending, we have been spending time, and we are spending much
more a lot more time in the future on this. We are working with
our councils. We have got the NIAC, the National Infrastructure
Advisory Council, you are familiar with, I am sure; the NSTAC,
the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Council. Both
of those bodies have been involved in helping us identify
standards.
We are working with the private sector to determine what
additional standards may be necessary. We are going to make
these standards publicly available on our Web sites as we
promulgate them. So this is all part of our outreach program.
Ms. Dunn. And you can do that, you believe, without
legislation?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. And I think at this point in
time, we have got the industry with the support of the
Congress, with the support of this administration, attuned to
the need that security is more than just something which you
can spend a dollar for and say, I have got adequate security.
The biggest challenge in the business community is, again,
ensuring you can identify what the appropriate level is and
what the right level of investment for a dollar of security,
does it get you anything in return. The cost and the return on
investment is always a key component in the private sector.
The business case here in terms of why businesses should be
spending money on security in advance of legislation, I think,
is one which is based upon competitive advantage. The more we
can educate consumers, either at the basic consumer level,
those who might shop at Amazon.com on line or those who
implement multimillion dollar programs in their businesses,
should know that they have choices about what the right choices
are to make for security, for levels of security in the
technology that they are buying; and the more we can make
those--that awareness known to the consumer groups, the more
pressure they will put on the private sector to ensure that
security is baked into their programs.
Ms. Dunn. Good. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from
North Carolina.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I think it is we all know how important
it is.
Mr. Liscouski, when we think in terms of cybersecurity, a
lot of folks, when they first hear it, they think of it as how
we protect computers. The truth is, as you know, it is much
broader than that, because so much of our productivity and our
economic fiber of this country is tied to the whole integration
system that we have; and over the last 10, 20 years we have
seen tremendous amounts.
So let me get back to the risk assessment, and I am going
to try not to cover something that hasn't been covered, but
maybe get a little better perspective on it. Because realizing
that a department is just gearing up, and thinking about just
the amount of problems we have had that was mentioned by our
ranking member just this past August, the economic damage that
was done to business and others by independent assessments, by
some of the digital risk companies are saying it was about $32
to $33 billion. So obviously, this whole issue of cybersecurity
is a huge issue.
What progress has the Department of Homeland Security made
in identifying cyber threats and vulnerabilities? And in
conjunction with that, how have you been able to share this
information with State and local organizations, which I think
is critical? You know, just because they have the information
doesn't really do us a whole lot of good unless we can figure
out how we can get it, to get some results in the assessment
area.
Mr. Liscouski. It is an excellent question because it is
the heart of what a good protection program is all about:
understanding the risks, the vulnerabilities to those risks,
and the right practices in which you can engage to mitigate or
reduce those risks or alleviate them.
To that end, a major component of what we have done there
are a number of them. We have got one effort as part of our
responsibility for securing the Federal Government, which is
initiated through the Fed CERT. That is the responsibility, to
ensure that the proper warning alerts, incident notices, are
going out across the Federal Government.
That program has been in place for a while, originally
established with GSA, now moved over to DHS, and is, at the
heart, the NCSD. It is a very robust program. Part of that is
also a patch remediation capability which goes back to the
reduction of vulnerabilities and spreading that word.
As it relates to the private sector and State and local
governments, I think that is where much of our work is required
to be done yet. We have got great relationships in the private
sector in providing us information about vulnerabilities. Our
relationships with Microsoft, with Cisco recently, have enabled
us to be able to respond very quickly to vulnerability
information and exploits and put notices out there to the
general public and the State and local governments as well.
They are all on the same alert system, so therefore they have
the opportunity of receiving this information very quickly.
It is our goal, with the establishment of the US-CERT and
the leadership that we are establishing in the NCSD, to reduce
these notification times from hours, currently, to, hopefully
by the end of fiscal year 2004, an average of 30 minutes. We
are looking to get robust communications capabilities out there
beyond what we have now working, establishing networks with
State and local governments.
We have got some efforts under way right now, which I would
like to keep at a top level, in terms of working very closely
with State initiatives to develop communication networks, and
then ultimately to establish State CERTs again, using the US-
CERT as a model to reach down into the State governments to
help them set up their own capabilities for incident response
and incident warnings.
So there are a number of initiatives we have got going in
the pipeline. Again, we have only been working here for 3
months, so we are moving from the thinking and planning stages
into the execution stages in the next quarter.
Mr. Etheridge. Let me follow that up, if I might, please,
because I think you moved into the advisory and warning area,
which I think is very critical as you deal with the assessed
risk assessment.
You have started a long--but as the Department looks at
this whole area of integrating warnings about the possible
problems of cybersecurity, and you have talked about what you
are doing across the Federal Government to get it done on the
security advisory system, talk to us a little bit more, if you
will, please, about how are you reaching out to locals. You
have talked about it in general terms. Because I think it is
important, because most of the people who are going to be
called upon to respond to such an attack are not traditional
first responders, as we think, in terms of the agency reaching
out to first responders--our fire, police or rescue; they are
important because they have to receive it too--but you are also
talking about a whole new group of first responders.
How about talking about how those two are integrated,
because I think it is critical to know, and what the Department
is doing on it? Because if all you do is go to the end user,
that will help, but you have really got to get upstream; and I
hope that is what you are talking about.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. And if I understand your question
correctly, this is again a multilevel approach.
Mr. Ethridge. Absolutely, because you have also got the
private sector category there.
Mr. Liscouski. That is correct.
The first responder category in the cyber world is every
user. I mean, it starts with prevention, as you well know, and
ensuring we have got the right procedures in place to protect
our systems; and that is just through basic security practices.
Part of our outreach program is intended to continue to
elevate the level of awareness and understanding and security
posture within our--across the entire Nation by getting the
average user or the business user to understand what they must
do to protect themselves. In response mode, I think the Blaster
and the SoBig virus are a example of how our response needs to
be enhanced. I think we did a very admirable job responding and
putting the advisories out, and we got a significant reach
across our community to do that, both horizontally and
vertically within the State and local government community, as
well as in the private sector.
But the home user was the one that I believe probably
lacked the ability to understand what the implication of the--
they clearly understood the implication, primarily because they
couldn't get on the Internet. It was--remediating from that
problem was where we saw the biggest challenge to be.
So we are looking at many creative ways to put out the
word. We are working with the major media, establishing
relationships with the major media to put the word out to make
sure we have got a consistent message across there. Information
sharing is the primary goal of DHS.
It is often said, you know, it is not need to know, but it
is need to share, and we are looking for as many ways as we can
to put the information out there--on best practices, on
vulnerabilities, on threats--that we possibly can, irrespective
of whether they are in the physical world or the cyber world.
We are not differentiating those things.
The only thing I would add, and I can probably get into
this a little bit later, is the speed at which the cyber world
works. As you well know, it requires a little bit of a
different sort of ops tempo, so to speak, or posture in
ensuring that we have got a consistent, a thorough and a
consistent look across all the infrastructure to ensure that we
are aware of what is going on in the cyber world.
I can address that later.
Mr. Ethridge. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but may I
follow up with one final, since we are on this point, because I
think it is so critical as we do this.
I hope at some point we have in the system a measurement to
know at least when we have we have had some measure of success.
You know, it is one thing to do the assessment, another to
notify. But unless we have a measurement down the road we talk
about what business does in terms of measuring inputs and
outputs. But we have to find a way to know, because this
pressures us to speed up our process in the decision-making
process to save those multitudes of billions of dollars down
the road.
Mr. Liscouski. You are absolutely right, sir. It is about
metrics. It is about ensuring we can find those measurable
programs and those factors within our programs to determine if,
in fact, we are doing the right thing. That is precisely the
business approach that we are taking.
Again, going back to the leadership--and the comments
earlier, ma'am, about, you know, why it took so long to find
our director--the only response on that is, we wanted to make
sure--we are only going to get a chance of doing this right
once, and finding the person with the right capabilities and
qualifications that can understand working in an
entrepreneurial environment.
How do you build an organization and who do you be able to
quickly execute against the requirements you have and this type
of highly threatened environment to make those --to measure
those successes is the type of person we were looking for and
is precisely the reason we were looking for them. It is all
about metrics.
Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Linder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I only have a couple
of questions on this idea of sharing intelligence and
information.
I think we are beyond the stage where our intelligence
agencies are not sharing with each other. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, if I heard you say, we are beyond the
point where we are not sharing.
Mr. Linder. Yeah.
Mr. Liscouski. Implying we really are sharing the
information. Yes, sir, you are correct.
Mr. Linder. How good are we at analyzing what we are
getting?
Mr. Liscouski. At what level, at the physical level or the
traditional threat level or at the cyber level, sir?
Mr. Linder. The threat level.
Mr. Liscouski. At the traditional threats level, I think we
are very good at analyzing it.
This is an extremely difficult problem, and I can speak to
it some, but I really defer to my colleague, Bill Parrish, the
Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, in his domain.
But I have operated in this space for quite a long time, and
our capabilities for analyzing information have only increased
over the years. I mean, we have gotten very good as a whole, as
the Intelligence Community, to analyze information.
It is an extremely complex problem because you never have
the perfect information. You can never do the perfect analysis.
You can only do it in hindsight and retrospect. It is an
extremely difficult problem to solve. But I think the
capability is the people we have attracted into the
Intelligence Community, particularly in DHS, are really some of
the finest minds out there to be able to understand these
complex problems.
Mr. Linder. And lastly, how cautious or how careful are you
in sharing this with first responders? There was a time when
they were being overburdened with unanalyzed intelligence right
after September 11 to the point they just set it all aside, and
it had no value whatsoever. I think you have to be careful what
you give to them, that it has to have some specificity, some
analysis, and that it is right down their alley.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. In fact, our focus is not on first
responders, and I don't mean this in any other way than calling
them first preventors.
When we are sharing intelligence information, it is really
intended to prevent the act from occurring, and we will err on
the side of sharing probably too much sometimes. Of course, not
in the sense of sharing classified information inappropriately.
But working with TTIC, IA, the FBI, we have been very
aggressive in assuring we can quickly declassify information to
share out to the field, to our consumer base, as quickly and as
effectively as we can.
That is a challenge we are always going face. Sources and
methods, as you well know, are one of those things--that is
something that has to be guarded very carefully. But I
believe--and I have seen it in practice--that we will err on
the side of maybe sharing too much information sometimes,
because the frustration you can create by sharing general
information without specifics, and particularly with specific
activities to follow, sometimes can create a frustration. But,
nonetheless, I think as we all mature in this process,
particularly as our end users understand the context during
this threat environment, they themselves will raise up their
capabilities as well.
Mr. Linder. Thank you.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank the gentleman.
Gentlelady from the Virgin Islands.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome the Assistant Secretary and thank the
chairman and ranking member for holding this hearing, given the
recent attacks, like the Blaster worm, and the concerns that
even a worse attack could occur within several hours or days
and the fact that so much of our physical infrastructure is
dependent--is so cyber dependent.
It is an important hearing, and I want to applaud you, Mr.
Assistant Secretary, for your focus on ensuring that
cybersecurity and physical infrastructure security are linked
in your operation, as it is important as they are linked in
reality.
I have a couple of questions. One of the--we have been
concerned about the slowness of the Department in getting
started and being able to plan and address many issues; and one
of the obstacles to that has been the fact that we were
bringing together 22 agencies and trying to blend them into a
smooth operational unit. The NCSD brings together about five
different parts of five different agencies--FBI, Commerce,
Defense--as well as a center. Are you pretty comfortable that
some of the obstacles of bringing different agencies with
different cultures together has been addressed and that you are
able to move forward smoothly now?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. I will tell you why that is a
great question.
I am satisfied because--I mean, that has been tremendously
challenging. I mean, bringing these organizations together
under one roof has been something that I don't think any person
who even architected this in the planning stages understood the
complexity of it.
I can speak for my own area within IAIP. As you pointed
out, we brought five different organizations into the NCSD and
IAIP. I just remind everyone respectfully that we have been in
business for 6 months, and the challenge we face in trying to
overcome some of those organizations has been pretty daunting;
I've got to be honest with you. I mean, when I came in from the
private sector to do this, it set me back a little bit when I
thought about, How are we going to do this and how are we going
to do this in the context that we have a real threat we are
facing every single day?
If you recall, when we did this, we were at war; and we had
to organize ourselves around work to respond to very real
threats in addition to bringing people on, creating
organization. It was pretty challenging.
The leadership at DHS, the senior leadership of DHS,
provided the right latitude in order to make mistakes. And that
is what we are going to be doing. I mean, clearly, as we start
out with this organization what it looks like today, in 2003,
will probably be a lot different in 2005, 2010. And hopefully
if we are succeeding we are going to continue the path of
evolution that will eventually evolve DHS into the robust
organization it really does need to be.
But we are on that path. It is a long road, but it has been
good. I mean, I can tell you in my private-sector experience
the thing that has been kind of very helpful to me is knowing
that we are going to make mistakes. But we don't have the
luxury of not making them. In fact, when we tell people when
they come on board--and I have said this before, I think,
before the committee--that we have got sort of one thinking. It
is a think big, act small scale, fast.
We know we are going to make mistakes. We know we have to
learn and we are going to evolve. It has been gratifying when
you look at it; and we were, on the way over here, reminding
ourselves it has only been 3 months for the division and it is
been 6 months for the DHS. In dog years it seems like it has
been a lifetime.
I can tell you that right now, it has been pretty
challenging, but we are making some very tremendous progress.
Mrs. Christensen. The other concern that I have is, the
officials who have left the positions over the few months; and
is, related to this, the difficulty in bringing the Department
together? Have you identified what the fault is, what were the
problems that would cause these officials to leave?
As you were looking for a Director of the NCSD several
candidates had indicated they weren't interested because it was
too far down the chain; they didn't have a direct link to the
Secretary.
Have you identified what it is that needed to be fixed?
Because the continuity of leadership is critical.
Mr. Liscouski. Yeah. I would suggest that I am not so sure
it needed to be fixed as much as we just had to find the right
person that understood this is about execution.
The challenge we had was taking a strategy, a highly
articulate and well-developed National Strategy to Secure
Cyberspace, and then putting implementation plans for that
strategy for execution. Two different types of people are
required for that job. And it is really difficult to be a
strategist at one level and an implementer at another level;
and we needed an implementer, and we needed a start-up person
that could take something where, to be quite candid with you,
is now somewhat of a chaotic environment, when you start things
up and just make some very short-term, measurable progress. And
that is the type of person we were looking for.
So I don't think there was a problem as much as there was
finding the right talent to fit that. And it is a challenge,
and it is a very risky challenge, because, you know, Mr. Yoran
is coming in to us with very definable goals. We have got high
expectations. It is very visible. And the risk to him--is you
know, at a personal level in terms of potentially not
succeeding, as well as to the Department is great.
So it is--when you are out there publicly like that, not
many people really want to take that challenge on.
Mrs. Christensen. Okay. One last question in this round.
Reading some of the articles in our background material--and it
is also my feeling that the Federal Government should lead by
example in cybersecurity--where are we in identifying the risks
and vulnerabilities of the government's cyber assets? Are we
leading by example?
Mr. Liscouski. Leading by example; I think we are probably
on a path to leading by example. I suspect there is always a
lot of room for improvement. We do have efforts underway to do
that. I think FISMA--the law has provided us tremendous
guidance and leadership or a framework from which we can
operate to ensure we are doing the rights things. So from that
perspective I think, frankly, FISMA is a wonderful example to
look at as a guide across the board. So I suggest the
government is leading by example on that, in that realm.
In our purchasing requirements, our ability to justify our
programs based upon good security practice, are things that I
think are very rational approaches to take as it relates to
cybersecurity. So I would argue, yes, I would think that the
government is leading by example.
We can be doing better. Cataloging our infrastructures,
understanding the interdependencies, those are things we are
trying to do across the board, and we have got programs in
place to do that. I think we will be getting better as we move
along.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentlelady.
The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Lucas.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, in June you had detailed the plans for
Consolidated Cybersecurity Tracking Analysis and Response
Center that would detect and respond to Internet incidents,
track potential threats and vulnerabilities, and coordinate
cybersecurity and incident response for the Federal, State,
local governments, private sector, and international partners.
What has been the status of the center?
Mr. Liscouski. Sir, the CSTARC, the Cybersecurity Tracking
Analysis Center, has evolved into the US-CERT. That was a
preliminary step for us to be able to organize ourselves around
this effort, consolidate the watch centers and the efforts we
had within the other organizations that came to us when DHS was
created--those organizations being the NIPC, the CIAO, elements
of the NCS, the FedCIRC--into one organization. And that CSTARC
represented the first iteration of what we knew was going to
become the US-CERT. With the CSTARC we were able to very
capably manage a number of significant incidents, the SoBig,
the Blaster virus, the Cisco vulnerability. And then that, as I
indicated, provided the framework for us to be able to build on
that to create the CERT, the US-CERT.
Mr. Lucas. This is a hypothetical. In the event that we had
a terrorist incident today, a cyberterrorist event, could you
just explain to me what process we would use today to notify
all these different interested agencies?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. In the hypothetical example,
suppose we were notified in the private sector that they first
identified a particular exploit, and that exploit resulted in
our analysis to determine that that might be something that
would be used or may be the focus of a terrorist attack. The
combination of resources we have across the Federal Government
currently, if it comes to DHS first, our analysis capabilities,
leveraging on the US-CERT to understand those exploits is our
first stopping point. The US-CERT then quickly engages with
other components of the Federal Government, the JTF, CNO, for
cooperation and additional analysis. We would reach out to the
private sector to do additional analysis. And as quickly as we
get our analysis completed to determine what the vulnerability
or the threat might be, then DHS has got the advisory
capability of putting warnings out very quickly to the entire
community vis-a-vis its alert system as well as the ISACs to
ensure that we have got thorough coverage.
And, again, it is a work in progress. I am not suggesting
it works the way it should work all the time or it is as
thorough as it should be. Over time, our goal is to ensure that
we increase that coverage.
Mr. Lucas. I understand you said you were staffing up. You
have about 65 now, and you are hoping to have 100-plus.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lucas. So, do I take it from that that you feel that
you have the financial resources you need to carry out your
mission? Or, if you had additional financial resources, how
would you utilize them?
Mr. Liscouski. You could always use money, but I am not so
sure if adding more money at any point in time is necessarily
the quickest solution. The biggest thing you have got to do is
build the right framework in the right organization in which to
put people in in the partnerships.
I think we are adequately funded right now. I think we have
got the right path to go on. We can come back and address that
downstream in fiscal year 2005.
Mr. Lucas. Those are my questions.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes
the Vice Chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Sessions.
Mr. Sessions. I thank the Chairman and appreciate him
holding this hearing today, along with the Ranking Member.
Mr. Liscouski, welcome. We are delighted to have you here
today. And I would say to you, and I think you have heard this
from members, we appreciate your private sector experience and
the things which you learned there and the focus that that
brings to you and the DHS; I think that the Federal Government
will be better off because of those lessons that you have
learned.
I would like to focus my questions today; I just heard you
use the word ``framework.'' Some people could also say the word
``business plan'' might fit in the middle of that, framework
business plan.
On page 2 of your testimony, there are six different pieces
that are called status of integrating organizations and
functions below into DHS. And it talks about the elements of
the National Infrastructure protection center--formerly housed
in the Federal Bureau of Investigation--DOD, FEMA, Department
of Commerce, Energy, and General Services, GSA, into functions
that you are evidently going to be responsible for.
I am interested in your discussion with us about the word
``framework,'' about how you are going to bring these functions
in to make sure--I guess the best word is to say, ``to measure
twice and saw once'' for the efficiency and the effectiveness
so that we are not recreating something 7 or 8 or 10 months
down the line because of your need just to rush into service.
Would you mind discussing those things, those activities of
those six different pieces.
Mr. Liscouski. Sure. And this is broader than cyber, sir.
This really relates to the entire Infrastructure Protection
Office. And I would be happy to address that because I think I
have got to talk about that, and then the framework for the
other divisions fall out of that.
Generally speaking--and I will go back to the very
beginning when I came to DHS back in March--as I indicated, it
was obviously brand new. We had been involved-- when I got
there it was about 3 weeks old. So--and we were in the middle
of a war and we were staffing up to respond to the threats we
had.
It was immediately apparent that the work that we were
engaged in could not change substantively, because the same
elements that came to us from the Energy assurance office, from
the NIPC, from the CIAO, from the NCS, those elements were the
very elements that were responding to the threats of the
present day. So we had to be very careful as we were building
this framework and identifying what our bigger mission
requirements were that we didn't break anything. So that was
job one, and make sure that we responded to those threats.
So in our current-day thinking, what we did was basically
establish a capability that would operate at one level, which
was just putting one foot in front of the other to make sure we
were not stepping on a land mine, so to speak, and we were
executing against the goals that we had against that particular
threat.
Now, by the same token, we had to also think in a bigger
picture to understand what did the organization need to look
like over the 6, 12, or 18 months? So we began to develop an
organization based upon the work that we were in. And that was
the first question: What business were we in? You know, were we
out there doing vulnerability assessments; were we just out
there thinking great thoughts about protection strategies we
should be doing? How do we create a capability that could
address critical infrastructure vulnerabilities across 13
critical infrastructures, 5 key assets, the cyber environment,
in a way that we could put coherence around this?
So we were able to organize ourselves at the first level to
understand what the organization needed to look like. It
started off with a very basic line of block chart with two
organizations in it. We added a third. We kind of mixed it up.
I mean, we really learned as we were going.
To your point, we wanted to ensure that we acted quickly to
identify the immediate needs but as we built an organization
for the longer term. We are exactly in that process right now.
I now have four divisions in my organization, because we have
identified the need to build it out but yet stay integrated;
not specialize too much, but orient ourselves according to sort
of our business approach.
And I can get into some more detail if you would like. But
effectively what we started doing was a supply chain analysis.
We looked at our client base and we looked at the private
sector, the Federal sector, State and local governments, the
territories. We looked at all those client bases and determined
what was it we were delivering, what was it they needed, and
how do we deliver it and what were the inputs into that
delivery system, into the production system. And that is
precisely what we are doing.
So we are still going through that process. I suggest it is
going to take a few more months before we really figure out the
exact processes we need in terms of an organization. And then,
as I said earlier, this organization is probably going to
evolve as we learn more about our businesses as we go along. It
will be a continuous work in process, I can promise you that.
Mr. Sessions. You know, I think some of my comments--and I
don't presume to know the things which are important
necessarily to each one of these elements, not being aware of
all the databases; but it is my hope that you would be able to
develop in some efficient factor a database with firewalls with
the elements that you need to avoid six database
administrators, six of everything to accomplish these things.
And that kind of goes back to the framework that the
house--the sandbox you are going to build. And it is my hope
that really your private sector vision would allow you and the
assistant secretary that luxury to please make sure when you
build that, whatever it is, that you do it within that
framework. And I guess my last comment is very plain. And that
is, we heard testimony last week where the people who were in
charge didn't communicate what they were in charge of, didn't
tell anybody what they needed to be doing, and there was a
failure from top to bottom, command-and-control structure. And
it is my hope that you really do follow up with those things of
integrating yourself with business leaders and commercial
leaders in this country to make sure they know not only what
you stand for but the lessons learned; because I think that the
key to this is avoiding or being prepared to avoid a strike
that would cripple this great Nation.
Thank you for your service. And we appreciate your being
here today.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. The gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. I thank the Chairman and Ranking Member
again for holding a very vital and important hearing. And Mr.
Liscouski, thank you for your willingness to accept what I
think is a larger-than-life challenge. It is something that I
hear when we travel. We had some hearings, field hearings in
Los Angeles and Long Beach, looking at the ports; and
cybersecurity technology permeates every aspect of the needs of
homeland security. And I am hoping that you are getting that
sense by the position. And I am going to take a line of very
rapid-fire questions and a series of them, and then if you
could try to respond.
One of the questions already asked about being able to
coordinate, if there was a cybersecurity or cyber attack,
coordinate with respect to our own Federal agencies. My pointed
question is: Do you feel confident that you have the authority,
in essence the power, to be able to command forces that deal
with cyber issues in a time of a cyber attack? And I really
want you to be pointed on the question of authority, because
that is our responsibility. How can we assist you to do that?
Because it certainly is telling that we have had a trail of
back--the back of people's backs--and that is departures--
respecting their reasons for doing so, but that is what has
occurred. So it is a great concern to me that you be vested
with the authority to do the job.
One of the things that the Federal Government has as its
assets--it has many assets, but it has several that relate to
homeland security and terrorist attacks. Certainly it is a role
model in action. So goes the Federal Government, so goes the
rest of the community in terms of looking to how we respond.
They watched us on 9/11, and I think we are quite grateful
that we were able to muster our senses about us and maintain
the continuity of government. The Pentagon was excellent in the
face of tragedy, and we all tried to support them and go
forward. But that was looked upon.
We also have the bully pulpit as to how we can encourage
communities to pull up their boot straps and get going on some
important issues. So I want to know specifically about the
authority.
Let me also say that--have we made and do you have under
your belt the enunciated vulnerabilities of the Federal
Government; specifically know where the cracks in our armor is?
We wanted to come and either have you delineate those--and you
might give them to me generally--but if we wanted to have a
closed-door session where you said, really pointed out some of
the large gaping holes, could you today, September the 16,
2003, list those for us? Very vital. Because as I said, if the
government collapsed in the midst of a tragedy, we are
certainly sending a bad signal out to those who are struggling
to overcome whatever the problem is.
Rapid fire, I continue. Have you found any connection to
cyber problems with respect to the massive blackout? Are you
engaged in a collaborative effort in that investigation?
What would be your response to the fact that we are raising
brighter and more inquisitive teenagers? I cite the 17-year-old
in the western State who was part of the virus epidemic. Of
course, everybody is talking about what a great young man he
is; he didn't mean it. But they are everywhere.
How are we dealing with the potential of this bright
emerging army of detractors? And do we do an outreach campaign?
Do we work with schools? How can Homeland Security be of
help to you on that? Do we have a doctor in the House? Are we
able to have our researchers and doctors look at--and when I
say ``doctors,'' I put quotes around it--look at the next virus
on the scene? Why are we only reacting? Our Nation is going to
look to us to be preventative medicine, so why are we in the
same boat as my BlackBerry ran away with itself a couple of
weeks ago with it is coming, it is coming, it is coming? No
solution, but it is coming. I think we need to be in the
business of preventative medicine. Who are we retaining? What
kind of resources do you need to be able to be the predictor of
what is to come?
And, finally, we did something in a bipartisan manner last
week that I am very proud of, and that is the Fair Credit Act,
I believe. But a big piece of that was the protection against
identity theft. But we can't do it alone with an authorization
bill under financial services.
I believe that identity threat is a threat to the homeland
security because why? Terrorists can steal your identity and
walk around and be as unpredictable as possible. What are we
doing with respect to identity theft which comes a lot through
the computer? And I thank you for responding to these rapid-
fire questions.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you, ma'am. If I took them down right,
I will be able to respond to them intelligently, hopefully.
First, I have to be able to read my own handwriting.
With respect to coordination, and specifically with respect
to the question of authority, I want to clarify one point. DHS
has got authority, protection authority. By statute, the
Homeland Security Act has set DHS up to be the promulgator of
protection strategies. From an investigative standpoint, we
partner up with the FBI, with the Secret Service, which is
clearly part of DHS. But the FBI has got the lead in many of
these cases to-- and this is where we probably need to get in a
little bit of a closed-door session, I think. But at the top
level, the authorities that we have, clearly I would say we
have adequate authorities to ensure that we have protection on
our cyberspace. And I say that in a thinking mode primarily
because we are just in the execution phase of our strategy. And
I think time will tell whether we have the appropriate--whether
we are impeded from executing fully the strategy that we need,
as has been articulated in the strategy and as we have
identified it. But I would say right now, yes, DHS has been
provided the full authority that we need, there are some
excellent programs we have in place and that we have in plan,
that are not appropriate for this session, that I think really
can articulate what those authorities are and how we are
meeting those things.
As it relates to responding to an attack and what that
might imply for other activities the U.S. Government would be
engaged in to prevent or actually to intercede or interdict a
cyber attack, those are resources which are not just owned by
DHS but other components of the Federal Government. So again,
that might be a more appropriate discussion for a closed
session, if you can indulge me on that.
On the second point: Have we made a full analysis of our
vulnerabilities? Again, I can tell you it is a work in
progress. I don't think we will ever know. I mean, the context
of a full analysis of our vulnerabilities implies that we can
get our arms around these things. And in the dynamic and ever-
changing environment in the technology world, new
vulnerabilities are always going to be coming out. And the
challenge we have is not just articulating or clearly
identifying and articulating those vulnerabilities in a steady
state. But there is no such thing as a steady state in the
technology world you identify with the vulnerability of a
nuclear power plant, because typically that technology doesn't
change. The threats to the nuclear power plant are not
necessarily static, but there are only so many ways you can
attack it. In the cyber world, it is very dynamic. So that will
be a continuous work in progress.
We have our hands on what I think is a good fund of
information that articulates what our vulnerabilities are in
the government, and clearly we are working hard on that. Again,
that might be more appropriate discussion for a closed session.
With respect to the blackout, again I have to apologize. In
fact, I guess I will be coming back tomorrow at a different
committee hearing to discuss the blackout. I am not at liberty
to say what we have found in terms of root cause and what the
respective relationships are in the cyber components. That
report will be coming out. I believe there will be an interim
report here in October, and that will be published by DOE and
the task force. I will have to indulge you on that question as
well.
An interesting point you brought up about the teenagers and
those who are propagating viruses and the relative ease they
have with which they can do that is a serious concern. You have
got a number of different types of viruses that can be created
out there. One is just basic tool sets that people pick up off
the Internet. They get bored with--they decide they want to
cobble them together, and they create a virus, and that can
happen fairly quickly. There is a different one, a different
set, different mind-set of people who decide they want to do
this, and then just quietly make them available to those in the
quote -unquote teenage realm here that you described, that they
are not even smart enough to maybe make their own viruses; they
might evolve them a little bit, but they are not the original
architects, and then all of a sudden these viruses find their
way into the public domain. I think our authorities, I think
the law enforcement community needs to aggressively pursue
these people.
I think this is similar to a discussion I had with some
advocates in the private sector who operate in the security
space, that they really want to see the government, the law
enforcement community, go after folks who provide the basic
tool sets, the basic knowhow to anybody on how to propagate a
virus. This is similar to becoming a conspirator in a crime.
Somebody mentioned an excellent example. If you are the
driver of a getaway car in a bank robbery and a passenger, your
codefendant, decides to shoot somebody and kills them, you are
equally as guilty as the shooter, just being the driver. We
should probably take the same attitude toward people who
propagate viruses. This is serious. And when you talk about
billions of dollars' worth of damage and losses to the private
sector and the government, these are no light matters. We need
to take this seriously.
The doctor in the house, the capability that we have in the
research community of developing the right talent, I think DHS
partnered up with others in the community, DOD in particular,
creating centers of excellence, providing scholarship programs
for cyber--you know, in the information security world. It is a
tremendous step forward. Do we need more people? We absolutely
need more people. And I think we are making the right steps to
address those needs.
And your final question: The Fair Credit Act and what are
we doing to protect against that? Again, I think there are good
efforts going on in that space. I think the FTC, and I know
Orson Swindle in particular, has been very aggressive in
putting the word out about what consumers need to do to protect
themselves. The Secret Service operates in the identity theft
space.
I agree with you, it is a very, very important issue. It
gets back to the issue about privacy and how you protect
privacy, and that is a central component of information
security. You cannot have privacy without good information
security.
So,I appreciate your questions.
Mr. Thornberry. The gentleman from Rhode Island.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join
with my colleagues in thanking the Chairman and the Ranking
Member for organizing this hearing. And, Mr. Secretary, thank
you for being here as well.
If I could, you had said that home and broadband users are
one of the groups you would like to focus on outreach and
education. And certainly, without a doubt, they are one of the
greatest neglected weaknesses in our national plan to secure
cyberspace. Can you give us a better sense of how DHS is
planning to address this? And would it be appropriate to work
with, for example, the Federal Trade Commission, which, as you
may know, is also mounting its own ``stay safe on-line
campaign''? And do you feel that a large-scale public awareness
campaign needs to be launched? And, in particular, and
following up with one of the points my colleague from Texas
made in terms of reaching out to young people, and maybe
through demonstration programs, how we can involve young people
in these awareness campaigns and kind of harness their energy
and natural ability to work with computers? I think that would
be a good place to start.
And one other point I would like to address, and this may
have to be addressed in closed session, but I think it is an
important point of focus. And that is in your vulnerability
assessment on our national assets and other areas. We have seen
a trend in recent years worldwide among terrorist attacks, that
terrorists focus on high-casualty, high-shock value events. And
I am curious and I think we all need to be attentive to what
those areas are in the world of cybersecurity that fall into
that realm. There may be only a few areas that would compare to
the use of a WMD in the cyber world, but those are the things
that I think we need to have high priority and focus on.
And I would like to at some point, even if we can't do it
here in open session, to follow up on that. And I think that
would be important. Thank you.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you. I am just trying to read my own
handwriting--your first question.
Mr. Langevin. It was on your comment earlier that home and
broadband users--.
Mr. Liscouski. Do we need a large-scale--exactly. With
respect to the broadband, one of the things we are working with
the National Cybersecurity Alliance. Among those
representatives on the Alliance are ISPs, AOL, and others. And
they are taking an individual responsibility to educate home
users to the challenges and security challenges they face in
broadband connections. I would like to see that expanded. I
think there is no question that the broadband community, you
know, the commercial space there needs to be really--from my
point of view, I need to use the bully pulpit to get them to
understand their responsibility that, as they sell broadband
connections, they have got to provide better awareness notices
to their users about the potential damage that can be done.
Because it doesn't just affect the individual. As you are
well aware, the individual user--these viruses propagate very
quickly, and consequently can spread across--using zombies or
using personal computers that are accessible via broadband
connections and then propagate these attacks. So there is a
real, I would suggest almost fiduciary responsibility on their
behalf. But that might be a little bit too aggressive. But at
the end of the day, we need to put that awareness and that
responsibility with the ISPs and the broadband connections,
cable companies, et cetera. So I do certainly agree with that.
The educational efforts, the outreach efforts, from our
point of view are geared toward educating the consumer. Your
point about young people and education, I liken that to, you
know, the DARE program, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program that has been around for--must be 20 years now.
Educating kids--and this is clearly a different
perspective. We are moving from self-esteem to responsibility
and how do you act. But I agree. I mean, it scares me to death
to know that young kids are on these Internet connections not
knowing about the dangers that they face through going to chat
rooms and the vulnerabilities that they have there. I mean,
just the vulnerabilities of kids being on the Internet is
something that scares me. And that is something that we can
address through good education programs in the schools.
DHS is going to be working hard to figure out how we do
that and reaching out to the schools to provide good awareness
and good education programs. Fortunately, the NIPC did this
previously. We have inherited those programs so we have got a
basis for doing that, and I think they have been successful.
They have got poster programs. But we need to expand that. It
is a high priority for me personally.
The vulnerability assessments, the trend in recent years
that you have articulated. Clearly, you know, I can get into
depth in this in a closed session, but at a top level we do
worry about the combination of a physical and cyber attack. You
know, a cyber attack preceding a physical attack, taking out a
9/11 system and then combining that with a physical attack. You
know, it is a scare. Is it doable? I would say at this point
anything is doable. And it is something we worry about a lot.
And we are working down--I can tell you one thing we are
working very aggressively on is--and the categories of all the
critical infrastructure we really worry about--we look at what
the nexus would be with a cyber attack to see how that might be
enhanced or what that sequence might look like.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Liscouski, I would like to--first let me ask this.
Before you took office, the administration put forward this
document, which is the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace,
dated February 2003. So far, have you discovered a major gap or
something that--where you think the emphasis was not placed,
the proper emphasis was not placed in this document? Or is this
something that you can still go by today?
Mr. Liscouski. No, sir. It is still a very valid document.
A lot of good thinking went into that, and I think the private
sector's input into that became particularly valuable to me as
we thought about how we needed to create our national
cybersecurity division.
Mr. Thornberry. Well, I would like to just briefly--and
this will entail a little bit of repetition from what you have
already talked about--but I would like to go through those five
priorities and ask you to kind of give us a snapshot of where
we are with each of them.
For example, the first priority listed in that document was
a National Cyberspace Security Response System. And they talked
about a public/private architecture where you would analyze
attacks and warn and manage incidents and then respond. It
sounds to me like that is essentially what US-CERT is going to
be doing. Is that the primary way that we are going to
implement that priority?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. It is the foundation for it. The
US-CERT is clearly the linchpin for that effort.
Mr. Thornberry. And then what more needs to be done?
Mr. Liscouski. Well, we need to--clearly, building
relationships at the private sector. I think the US-CERT is an
excellent start at that foundation. And we have engaged in
discussions with the private sector, the Nortons and the
McAfees of the world, to determine how we can integrate their
contributions to this effort. I think there is a lot of good
work that can be done there.
The private sector is doing a tremendous amount of good
information collection and analysis on viruses and
vulnerabilities that we would like to be able to integrate more
robustly. And then extending the information out--as we spoke
earlier, the National Response System is not just national but
it is international as well. So we have a lot of work to do
there as well, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. The second priority is a National
Cyberspace Security Threat and Vulnerability reduction program,
where the National Strategy talks about reducing the threat,
identifying vulnerabilities, and then trying to develop systems
with fewer vulnerabilities. Give me a snapshot of our efforts
to implement priority No. 2.
Mr. Liscouski. Again, and you know, the dominant theme here
is private sector. And we have to again work with the major
manufacturers and the smaller manufacturers of both hardware
and software technologies to ensure that when they produce
technology, it is according to guidelines and expectations that
they have fewer and fewer security vulnerabilities. And if we
can--and to be candid with you, companies are stepping up to
that challenge. You know, pointing out to Microsoft and the
things that they have done, they have taken this
responsibility. I know they have been subject to a lot of
criticism, but at the end of the day they are--their chief
security officer is responsible for overseeing many of the
programs that they have. They have taken very good steps here.
It is a good example of what we need to be doing with the
private sector. Those who produce it have to understand that
they have the responsibility of producing good technology the
first time around. Security defaults should not be off. I mean,
this is the classic thinking of just basic things that need to
be done. They are making good inroads there.
The other point is to continually look at the
infrastructures, you know,the vulnerabilities that we create by
implementing technologies. I mean, this is a bigger discussion,
to be quite candid with you, but we are doing a lot of analysis
as converging technologies come in. I mean, we look at the
convergence between the IP world and the telecom world and the
vulnerabilities that are inherent there, because of--and
forgive me for going too deep into this. But just as an
interesting example, one of the advances of technologies,
because they become more efficient, they themselves bring about
vulnerabilities because now one device can do the work of 10.
Where you had redundancy before, now you are down to a critical
path of one device as being a key vulnerability. So we are
constantly looking at those things as well.
Mr. Thornberry. Talking about the private sector, at this
point, do you have an opinion about whether market forces are
going to be enough to elicit the kind of response from hardware
and software vendors that the country must have?
Mr. Liscouski. I am optimistic that the market forces will
be sufficient. But I am prepared to say that if they are not,
we need to quickly adapt our thinking.
Mr. Thornberry. And as part of that reduction of
vulnerability, is the Department looking at physical
infrastructure related to cybersecurity as part of our
vulnerabilities and part of what we need to assess?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. And, unfortunately, this has been
going on prior to even the establishment or the articulation of
a national strategy. The NCS, the National Communication
System, which was previously a DOD component, did a significant
amount of work on vulnerability analysis of the telecom
industry and then the IP backbones. So we have got a
significant amount of data here that already allows us to be
able to identify these vulnerabilities, and we are continuing
to expand that.
Mr. Thornberry. It seems to me greater work is going to be
needed in that area, and we can discuss that at another time.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. Let me briefly go through. The third
priority was a Cybersecurity Awareness and Training Program; a
number of questions have dealt with that so far. Is that going
to be the focus of your summit in the fall?
Mr. Liscouski. That is a key component of it--for us,
understanding how we can better reach the community. And our
summit is going to include not just those in the technology
industry, but across industries, so we have a broad approach to
understanding the problems. So, yes, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. The fourth priority was securing
government's own cyberspace. You have been asked about that
before. But I am unclear, frankly, as to how much authority or
influence you have in bringing the rest of the Federal
Government along. My understanding is that that has been
primarily OMB's responsibility. And just about every witness we
have had before this subcommittee says that the government is
nowhere near where they should be, and that if the government
would lead, it is such a big consumer and has such market
power, that it brings the rest of the country along with it.
But what is your role exactly in bringing the rest of the
government along?
Mr. Liscouski. Our role is really to support the OMB. OMB
does have the initial lead to ensure that, through FISMA and
through the regulations that they provide and the oversight,
that the government is responding to their responsibilities to
provide security. DHS's role in this is really to coordinate
the incident response and warning through the FedCIRC through
the Federal Government, and I think that could be expanded to
understanding more about the vulnerabilities.
As I indicated earlier, we do have the patch for
remediation responsibility through the PATC to ensure that the
right tools are available to the government. So we have a
responsibility there, sir.
Mr. Thornberry. The final priority was national security
and international security cooperation. I don't know--you have
alluded to those things briefly before in your testimony. I
suppose that is an area where there are an ongoing efforts and
will have to continue to be ongoing. Let me ask you to do this.
Rate where you believe international cooperation is on
cybersecurity at this point.
Mr. Liscouski. I had said in the beginning stages, it is
tough to put a numerical code on it. I would say we are really
in the beginning stages of understanding--well, we clearly know
what we need to do, but we are just in the very beginning
stages of really making some progress and establishing the
relationships that are so necessary for us. There is a lot of
opportunity there for us. It is a big world. I mean, there is a
lot. And as you pointed out earlier, this technology is
ubiquitous. It is not necessarily discriminating by economic
income in terms of gross national product. I mean, you can get
cheap technology out there and create these vulnerabilities. So
we have a lot of work ahead of us to do, and I think we are
positioned to do it.
Mr. Thornberry. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Meek.
Mr. Meek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being here.
Speaking of the private sector, and I guess when we speak
of the private sector we are just not talking about domestic
private sector, because the cybersecurity is a huge issue.
Recently, as you know, with the New York blackout you had
thousands of New Yorkers in subways and you had folks in
Detroit and auto plants that were shut down, and it halted
after-hours trading as it relates to Wall Street. A lot of
things took place. What exercise did the Department go through
to find out was it or was it not a cyber attack? That is one.
Two, what happened in the private sector as it relates to
that, especially in our energy industry and those that handle
their cyber needs? What took place as it relates to checking,
making sure that we weren't under a cyber terrorist attack?
Mr. Liscouski. Okay. If you can indulge me, I have to speak
in general terms.
Mr. Meek. Sure.
Mr. Liscouski. We are in the process of investigating that
component. I chair the Security Working Group for the
Electricity Task Force. So, in that capacity, I have got to be
careful what I can say and what I can't say. We are going to
have a hearing tomorrow on this and we are going to be
publishing reports downstream, so I want to be a little bit
circumspect. But what I can do is discuss what we did as DHS
during the blackout, and I might add some clarity about how
this process works a little bit, because I think it is clearly
relevant and it is not going to be disclosing anything that
can't be disclosed.
I am quite proud--I mean, DHS should be very proud of how
we came together to respond to the blackout along with the rest
of the Federal Government. But DHS in particular was sort of
the point in contact in understanding what was going on in the
industry. We immediately reached out, upon learning what was
going on, to the industry to determine what was their
perspective. I mean, it is the unique thing that DHS has the
ability to reach, through the ISAACS, to the private sector, in
this case the NERC, to determine what is going on and what is
the situational awareness component that we need to respond to.
Do we have a terrorist event? Because precisely how we are
positioned to respond is, you look at an event like that, then
you immediately go to the next step of saying what can occur
next? Is this a terrorist event? And even if it is not, A,
could it be exploited? Or, B, if it is a terrorist event, what
is the next step? And we immediately have the capability to do
that.
So DHS was able to come together very quickly across its
directorates, ask those questions, gain situational awareness,
and provide direct advice to the Secretary and subsequently to
the President about where we were. And then working with the
FBI, the combination between DHS and FBI, we were able to
quickly conclude from an initial perspective that there was no
terrorist nexus there.
Mr. Meek. So were you pleased with the checking process as
it relates to is it terrorism or is it not terrorism amongst
many departments and even the private sector?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir.
Mr. Meek. So this report is going to be based upon trying
to better what is good already? Or what areas will you be
looking at?
Mr. Liscouski. Well, the report is not examining how DHS or
the Federal community acted. We are really looking at the root
cause of the blackout.
Mr. Meek. And its potential for taking place again?
Mr. Liscouski. Correct. That is correct.
Mr. Meek. As you know, with the World Trade Center, there
were many attempts and sometimes folks get great ideas. Will
there be any discussion on how to not only share with New
Yorkers but Americans when an attack like that takes place--as
you know, the power was out, there was no cable television for
folks to look at, there was really no communications
whatsoever. Will that be something that DHS will be looking at,
to see how can we contact--I mean, everyone you hear, oh, New
Yorkers, they did their thing, things went very smoothly,
people knew where to go. But there was a lot of street
hollering on the corner on how do you get out of Manhattan.
Does the Department's looking into reaching out and to
individuals need to be through two-way pagers, through the
telephone, through things that were working?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, sir. In fact, that is really within the
domain of Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate under
Secretary Mike Brown. They are looking, they are doing a deep
look about that type of communication requirement, first
responders, et cetera. I would really defer to them.
Mr. Meek. Okay. One last question, Mr. Secretary, or I
guess a concern of mine. I just want to make sure that cyber
partners that we do have that are working with us against this
effort in terrorism, that they are working as hard as possible
and together. I look at what--your job is almost similar to
almost the Intelligence Community. It is kind of hard to share
information. You have competition, you have private sector
needs and technology needs and things that they want to keep to
themselves. But if is not put on the table on behalf of
security as it relates to the cyber world here in the United
States, we may very well have problems. And when we have a
problem, that means that things will be legislated and
decisions will be made in haste that individuals may not like.
And I think it is important that we encourage them to work.
I wish you well on your report. I am looking forward to
seeing and hearing more about it.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Mr. Meek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman, and want to mention,
again, that this subcommittee as well as the Border
Subcommittee will hold our second hearing tomorrow on this
interdependency of infrastructures. And Mr. Liscouski will be
one of the witnesses, as well as others from the Department,
because I agree with the gentleman from Florida; these are
critical issues and we need to learn the lessons when it
happens the first time so that we are not put at a
disadvantage.
The Chair would recognize the Ranking Member.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot of the
questions I thought I would ask have already been asked, so I
really just have two issues that I want to raise. One has to do
with the ISACs. You mentioned them in your testimony. And the
feedback I have received from the private sector is that some
of them are performing a lot better than others. And that, in
particular, telecom actually seems to be working pretty well,
IT; but, in the other sectors, that they are basically not
functioning. And--and I don't know if this is true or not, but
this is what some of the private sector people have said--and
the problem may be a lack of funding support. At least that is
what some of the private sector people identified.
Do you think that that assessment about some of these ISACs
is correct? And what should we do to pump them up a bit?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, I think it is fair. I think your
characterization of the telecoms and the IT-ISAC as well as
others--I think the energy ISAC is another good example, oil
and gas. We are looking at them. I guess the easiest answer is
that we are examining the best model.
I think currently it is sort of a one-size-fits-all model
and it is really not the appropriate one. I think the more we
learn about the way information sharing needs to be propagated
across the sectors, they are so diverse, many of them are very
diverse and not technically connected. We need to look at that
more quickly, and we are going through that examination process
right now.
Ms. Lofgren. When will that be completed, do you think?
Mr. Liscouski. You know, completion is probably--I mean, I
am really looking at changing the model fairly quickly. The
funding model is one of those things. I don't want to give you
specific data. I would like to get back to you with more of an
intelligent answer about what that is going to look like. I
think what I would like to do and what I am planning on doing
is actually starting a couple of different types of pilots to
see what does work. And I would be happy to share that with you
in more detail at a later time when we have pretty much our
plans finalized.
Ms. Lofgren. I would be interested in that, if you could
keep us posted. I am sure the whole committee would like to
know about it. And if there is a requirement to change the
funding stream--I don't know whether we need legislation to do
that or not--but I would be interested in that recommendation
from you.
Mr. Liscouski. Sure.
Ms. Lofgren. And additionally, in addition to the
functioning of the ISACs, internally I have heard criticism
that there is sort of--they are piped, and that there really
needs to be some communication among them as well. So I assume
that you are--.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am, that is precisely the point we
are looking.
Ms. Lofgren. All right. The final question I have has to do
with the vacancy rate in your Department. And when you were
talking about how challenging it was to come in, I am sure it
has been and you want to get good people, you want to get the
right people; and it is hard to start an organization from
scratch and try and go 65 miles an hour while you are doing it.
So I don't want to appear overly critical.
But I am concerned that the vacancy rate is still very
high, about 40 percent, I would think. And in a way I have been
concerned about this, not just with DHS but other Federal
departments when we have tried to get people with expertise and
technology to come to work for the Federal Government. I tried
with the former commissioner of the INS before the creation of
the Department. I mean, we couldn't get people to come to work
for the Federal Government, which is disappointing. And
especially now with the terrible economic situation in the tech
sector, it seems almost mysterious that we can't do a faster,
better job of recruiting in this sector.
So the question is: What are you going to do to fill those
vacancies? What can we do, if anything, to help you in getting
staffed up as quickly as possible?
Mr. Liscouski. Well, I appreciate the concern. And, you
know, attrition rates and vacancy rates are things that always
plague every business or every government. So it is not a
question of that. And I can't speak to the exact number, so I
apologize. I mean, we can get back to you on that.
But let me just address it by this. First of all, the
workforce we are attracting is a talented workforce. I mean, we
are extremely fortunate with some of the folks that we have
attracted. And I think, you know, in my experience--I was in
the government; I left my career with the State Department back
in 1991 And was very impressed with the folks I worked with and
my colleagues. I am happy to say I think that workforce has
continually increased in its capabilities, particularly in DHS;
I have been gratified to see that, folks particularly in the
IAIP area. So we have been successful in doing that.
One of the challenges we have when we recruit people from
the private sector is going through the clearance process,
because the clearance process and working at the levels we are
working at require us to take a 6--to 9-month clearance
process, and you really can't even work effectively at all
until you have got those appropriate clearances. So, while we
may have people identified in positions, they can't occupy
those positions until they have been vetted and the clearances
have granted. And that might be contributing to some of the
vacancies you are hearing about.
But we are working hard. And, you know, I appreciate your
comments and I would like to just kind of, I guess, recognize
that the people that are there today are really working
extremely hard. I mean, this country is extremely fortunate,
and I have got the benefit of working with them on a daily
basis, and they put in some incredible hours and they are
really dedicated.
And I can tell you right now, since March 1st, the folks
that work in our directorate have been working nonstop. I mean,
literally, you go in there on Saturdays and Sundays, and some
days you think it is a Wednesday. You know, it is just--it is
staffed, And people work hard and they are dedicated. So we are
very fortunate.
Ms. Lofgren. If I can follow up--and that is good to hear.
Perhaps the resources that we should apply then might not even
be in your Department but in the FBI to--maybe additional
resources to do the clearances. Would that be of assistance? I
mean, there is no real reason why it has to take 9 months to do
the clearances, just the work is the lack of personnel to put
on it.
Mr. Liscouski. I am not competent to be able to answer that
question, but I suspect we can probably get back to you on
that.
Ms. Lofgren. I would like to know that. And that may be
something we could help to address, because that is something
we ought to address, it seems to me.
And I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentlelady.
Dr. Christensen.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member, it does occur to me, and it came up earlier,
that there may be reasons for us to ask the assistant secretary
to meet with us in a closed and classified setting, because
there may be some questions we might not want to ask in a
public hearing.
I have one further question for you, Assistant Secretary.
One of the objectives of the National Strategy is to foster
adequate training and education programs to support the
national security need. You talked about the relationship with
Carnegie-Mellon and you made reference to relationships with
other universities. I wonder if you would elaborate on that
some, and also talk a bit about how you would ensure the
involvement of historically black colleges and universities and
other minority-serving institutions.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. There are a couple of different
ways we are addressing that. First of all, my colleague, Under
Secretary McCreary, has got a program--and forgive me for not
knowing the exact specifics on this--in which they are creating
partnerships with universities. And I believe it is among those
major components that the partnerships are to enhance
educational opportunities for the specific areas that we need.
So I think it is probably more appropriate to sort of field
that question to Under Secretary McCreary's area.
But in our area and working with other partners, you know,
the NSA sponsoring the centers of excellence and the university
programs that they have, are geared toward enabling
opportunity, creating opportunities for educational programs
and students to get into the information security area in
particular. It is an area that we have a very keen interest in
and we are looking to support that.
I can't speak to the programs themselves in terms of where
the emphasis is on that program in historically black colleges,
but I am almost certain I remember a conversation with NSA
officials that they have established centers of excellence at
schools that really honor diversity. But, again, I can't speak
competently to that question, but I would be happy to get back
to you.
Mrs. Christensen. Well, given the extensive need for
personnel who are really--who are well-skilled and trained, and
the sensitivity of the issues that we are going to be dealing
with, not allowing us to always go overseas to seek personnel
for these offices, I think it is important that we build up our
personnel from within and that we extend and expand it to
include these institutions as well.
Mr. Liscouski. I agree.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. Ms. Jackson-Lee.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I again thank you
for the hearing that we will have tomorrow and the one that we
are having today.
I would like to join Congresswoman Christensen on this
issue of HBCUs and the matching of talent. And I think that
your point about outreach is extremely important. I would make
a suggestion that the Secretary be referred to having a meeting
with the president of at least a number of our HBCUs. They are
certainly--I think it is definable as to those institutions
that may even have those disciplines that would be an excellent
feeding source, or a source of talent. And I would add, of
course, Hispanic-serving institutions as well. We did that in
the previous administration with having a roundtable with about
10 to 20 HBCU presidents, and it really, really is effective in
terms of getting them focused and working in partnership with
talented individuals who may not be aware of the opportunities
and but yet they have great talent.
So I would appreciate it if we could get a response back on
that request as to the facilitating of that meeting. And any
way that we can help to facilitate would be happy to do so.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am, thank you. I think that is a
great suggestion. And I can tell you, we would like to take you
up on that, but we will get back to you formally.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. I appreciate it very much.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Let me note, if I understand, when I asked
the question about blackout, just give me your answer again.
You were saying it is another committee? Or you are going to be
here tomorrow discussing? I know we have a hearing tomorrow and
we have that as one of our topics. Is that what you were
suggesting to me, that you would be able to give more on this
issue of what impacts cyber had on the blackout tomorrow? Or
are you waiting on a report?
Mr. Liscouski. I may be able to speak at a top level
tomorrow; but in earnest, I have to tell you, we have to really
conclude the report. We are still going through the analysis.
So it is really any preliminary conclusions we come to at this
point can easily be eclipsed by other facts that might lead us
to a different conclusion. So I will just have to defer to the
report, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. And that report will be--what is the date
are we looking at for that?
Mr. Liscouski. I don't know if it has been published in
terms of the specific dates. I know the task force is shooting
for sometime in the late October time frame.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Late October.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. And that is, of course, a public report?
Mr. Liscouski. Ma'am, I don't know, to be honest with you.
I will have to find out.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. All right. Well, will you provide us with
that information even tomorrow as to the status of that report?
Mr. Liscouski. Certainly.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Let me just pursue briefly the line of
questioning that I had before about authority and the role of
DHS. And I think you said to me that the role is to protect
from cyber terrorism; that DHS protects from cyber terrorism,
and the FBI is in the business of responding to the attacks or
really on the aggressive end of it.
My concern is does it make sense to divide the experts, the
ones that are telling us the story, and then those who have to
react to the story? Is there a protocol to have two teams, the
two teams interact with each other? And then when there is a
crisis--that is a question I was asking--who is in charge? Now,
you indicated the FBI. But then how does the component that you
work with get merged into the FBI? Because when we are in
crisis, we need all of the thinkers working together, the
reactors; but those who say I have got a solution, because I
know on the protection side what we had to do. And a protection
response, is it making it more difficult to get people in the
protection side? Because certainly there is a lot more energy
and excitement maybe on the response side. But I am
particularly concerned about the authority question and the
protocol that would merge them, if necessary, and whether there
is interaction even in the backdrop of the day-to-day work,
which I think is extremely important.
Mr. Liscouski. I thank you for the opportunity to clarify,
because I think I misled you a bit on my remarks earlier. It is
not unique to the FBI in terms of the enforcement and the
investigative responsibility. The Secret Service--and, as you
know, Secret Service is a component of DHS with whom we closely
work--also has a responsibility to investigate cyber crime. In
fact, within the financial domain, they are really the
preeminent experts.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. That was a new addition to their
responsibilities.
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am, and they are effectively
executing against that. They have some tremendous talent, as
does the FBI. We are very ecumenical in our approach. We try to
ensure that we have got the right resources. And I think the
recent--forgive me, I don't know if it was Blaster or SoBig in
which both the FBI and the Secret Service jointly investigated,
and they worked extremely well together; they complemented
themselves extremely well.
From my point of view, you can never have enough resources
to investigate these things. So I think if a little is good,
more is better in this case. And the unique capabilities that
are within the domain of the Bureau and the FBI I think both
complement themselves and overlap where they are necessary; it
is appropriate. We work very closely.
And I will just state this: that my intention in creating
our capability within IAP and the NCSD is to continuously
increase our reliance upon the Secret Service for their
capabilities. So, by extension, I would say DHS clearly has the
authorities we need. When I was discussing this as it relates
to the protection responsibility, it was really relevant to the
IAIP mission and the infrastructure protection mission
specifically. We do not have investigative authority. We don't
need investigative authority, to be candid with you. We have
the resources in-house, the DHS, to investigative requirements
as we identify them.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. But you feel you have sufficient authority
to work on the matters that you are working on, but also to
coordinate with the other agencies when there is a time of
crisis?
Mr. Liscouski. Yes, ma'am. In fact, I think we have been
able to demonstrate that effectively, as I indicated, through
the recent Blaster and SoBig viruses, the blackout. All those
incidents have served to really validate the fact that this
approach is the appropriate one.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentlelady.
Does Mr. Meek have additional questions?
Mr. Meek. Just a small one, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I guess we are going to need at a future
date--and I don't know, maybe the Chairman and others are
thinking about it--but a closed hearing; we can ask a few
aggressive questions as it relates to cybersecurity and as it
relates to the security of our infrastructure here in the
United States.
What level of, would you say, urgency and concern that
jointly government and the private sector may have as it
relates to a cyber attack? The reason why I ask that question,
Mr. Secretary--there may be a quick answer that you can give
me--is the fact that we know that there are terrorist groups
that are abroad, and possibly could be domestic, that would
like to take our ability to be able to live financially and
socially through the Internet. And since we are doing--seems
that we are doing a good job as it relates to trying to keep
terrorists and track them down before they cross our borders,
and using the approach that they are using in Iraq right now of
saying why do we have to come to the United States, we can go
to Iraq and still accomplish our goal--what kind of urgency do
you see? Because I hear a lot of we are fine, we don't need X,
Y, and Z, when I know that there are issues out there that need
to be addressed and there are issues that this subcommittee
needs to address legislatively. There are issues that the
Department needs to address rule-wise and administratively. But
maybe there are some areas that you feel that are important
that we need to fill the gap. And I am just trying to think of
the urgency.
I used to be a law enforcement person, and no one is really
concerned about the parking lot security outside of any
hospital until someone gets pushed down and their wallet or
purse is taken. So I am trying to make sure that what--from a
scale of 1 to 10, where do you think we are and where do we
need to be? Or are we in the right position right now?
Everyone, hands on deck, just like they were for the last
couple of years? What do you think we need to do here?
Mr. Liscouski. Well, I mean, let me just clarify my
statements earlier about where we are. I think we are
positioned for success. I think we have got the right
architecture, the right framework to build on. I think we know
where we have to go. But I did not mean to imply that the world
out there is not a bad world.
I agree with you 100 percent; there are some serious
threats that we face. The cyber community, the cyber world is
one which we are just really beginning to understand and
beginning to see the evidence of what those threats can do to
manifest themselves in our technologies. So in terms of sense
of urgencies, I don't want to sit here calmly explaining to you
what we are doing and give you the false perception that I am
not worried about it. I am worried about it all the time. And
we need to be worried about it. And the community needs to be
worried about it, because we are not in control of those
threats.
The challenge we have on the cyber world, unlike the
physical world where you can really put your arms around
somebody and identify the command-and-control structure and the
capabilities that they may or may not have to conduct an
attack, the cyber world is a lot easier to work in. And
although the technologies that you need to do to--there is a
debate about how technically savvy you have to be to really
conduct a really effective attack or a long sustainable attack.
I would argue that I wouldn't want to wait to find that out,
and we need to move aggressively and we need to be worried
about it.
So I am happy to sit calmly before this committee and talk
about the things we are doing. But we are not sitting back
calmly back at DHS and other places, just thinking about are we
doing the right things. We are really trying to move out and
get urgency around this.
So I agree with you and I share that, and I appreciate your
comments of concern, because we are concerned about it. These
threats are real, they are ubiquitous, they are everything from
the kid that gets bored and decides that he is going to put a
virus out there, to organized crime groups that are out there
exploiting our networks and exploiting our information and
extorting them.
Mr. Liscouski. Terrorist groups, state groups, you name it.
They are out there. Common thieves, common criminals. They all
have the capabilities of doing these things and doing it all
the time. We are constantly under attack on the Internet, and
you know, if you talk to any of the providers out there and you
talk to the folks who are providing services on the Internet
community, the backbone, they see threats all the time. They
see stuff, it just would boggle your mind. Fortunately, you
know they haven't manifest themselves in anything serious yet.
And it is the ``yet'' that worries me, the ability to do that
is out there, so.
Mr. Meek. Mr. Secretary, if I may, that's where I mean, you
are hitting exactly where I thought you would hit as it relates
to the threat. And the threat is real. We have individuals that
are being robbed right now over the Internet, stuck up, ransom,
what have you, $50,000 transferred here and no one will ever
know about it because it has a lot to do with stocks and trades
and investors and security of their own infrastructure. I just
want to make sure that we continue to have a sense of urgency.
It is not about the preparedness. It is about the consistency
of the preparedness. And I know my job and I know our job is to
support the Department and the private sector in its efforts,
but at the same time, make sure not only that DHS has what it
needs, but we keep the pressure on all players of making sure
that we do what we have to do, because the last thing that we
want is for you for me or anyone on this committee to be
identified as okay. You are okay, I am okay, okay, fine.
Everything is fine. We need to make sure that you are okay, I
am okay, how do we move this ball and play offense because they
are playing offense.
So I am glad to hear that you are still sitting on the edge
of your seat personally and that people who serve in your
capacity in the private sector has that same sitting on the
edge of the seat hopefully as it relates to playing toward
overall infrastructure protection. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Liscouski. Thank you.
Mr. Thornberry. I thank the gentleman. And I think that
discussion that he just had with the witness is an appropriate
way to end our hearing because--and I have some additional
questions I would like to submit for the record, but I think
that sense of urgency that he described is difficult to
maintain, not just with cyber, with the whole range of Homeland
Security responsibilities. But, yet, we must try to keep that
sense of urgency because there is so much at stake. Mr.
Liscouski, I will say for me, personally, I am impressed by the
actions that you have taken in the cyber field to help bring us
closer to where we need to be. I am also convinced that you
maintain this sense of urgency.
As you said at the end of your opening statement, we are
partners in this effort. That doesn't mean we are a rubber
stamp, it doesn't mean we are a cheerleading squad. But we are
partners with you to try to help maintain the sense of urgency
and take real concrete steps that help our country be safer. We
look forward to working with you in the future to do that. And
again, thank you for your appearance today. I thank the
gentlelady from California as always for her work and with that
the hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]