Guarding nation’s computers

Guarding nation’s computers

Kansas City Star: President Obama’s announcement of a new effort to deal with cyberattacks is welcome, even though it remains incomplete in detail. The administration should work rapidly to fill in the blanks.

The plan calls for a White House “cybersecurity” officer to coordinate the nation’s attempts to “deter, prevent, detect and defend” against computer attacks.

But a 38-page document describing the program had few details about how those goals would be met.

Nor did it resolve any of the festering disputes among the National Security Agency, Homeland Security and other agencies over which entity should take the lead in defensive — and offensive — computer operations.

It’s NSA’s job

Currently, NSA is the repository for most of Washington’s digital-warfare know-how.

In the future — presumably when the interagency turf wars are more settled — the administration is expected to announce creation of a new military command for cyber operations.

The plan announced by Obama deals mainly with defensive operations — curbing access to the government’s computer networks, and protecting the computer systems that run the financial markets, banking and air-traffic control.

So far, so good. The next step is for Obama to appoint an active and knowledgeable person to be the first “cybersecurity coordinator,” who could begin filling in the details on how the nation’s critical computer infrastructure should be protected.