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« There Are MANY Software Licensing and Awareness Tools Available For All Business Sizes and Budgets | Main | Insider Threat, the Value of Computer Logs & the Need for Consistent Policy Enforcement »

New U.S. Cybersecurity Special Assistant Appointed on November 28

On November 28 U.S. President G. W. Bush appointed Marie O'Neill Sciarrone to be Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Senior Director for Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Policy.

"The President has named Marie O'Neill Sciarrone to be Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Senior Director for Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Policy. Ms. Sciarrone recently served as Director of Protection and Information Sharing Policy on the Homeland Security Council staff. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia."

What impact will this have on how information will be protected by the U.S. government?

Time will tell.

I couldn't find a job description or responsibilities document for this position, or the others with cybersecurity responsibilities. The mission objectives and functions for the U.S. Cybersecurity division can be found here.

It shows that the White House is either 1) trying to put forth more effort to address information security and cybercrime issues; or 2) trying in the last 13 months of his term to put the president on the books as trying to address information security and cybercrime issues.

This is seems to be a promotion for Sciarrone, who worked on similar issues as director of protection and information-sharing policy at the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

I wonder why the White House usually does not fill their information security positions with folks who have information security certifications, such as a CISSP, CISM or others?

True, you can be very knowledgeable and experienced without a certification, but it would seem to be a good prerequisite for a government position of this type.

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Rebecca Herold's Bio:

Rebecca Herold,CISSP, CIPP, CISM, CISA, FLMI, has been providing information security, privacy and regulatory assistance and services to organizations from a wide range of industries for over 18 years. Rebecca was instrumental in building the information security and privacy program while at Principal Financial Group, which was awarded the CSI Information Security Program of the Year Award in 1998. IT Security ranked Rebecca as one of the top 59 IT security influencers, and Computerworld put Rebecca their list of the 25 top privacy experts and on their list of the 9 best privacy consulting firms. Rebecca has been CPO for two consulting organizations, and has had her own information privacy, security and compliance business since 2004. Rebecca has written chapters for several books, dozens of articles, and has been writing a monthly privacy column for the CSI Alert newsletter since the beginning of 2001, and is working on her 11th book. Some of her other books include The Privacy Papers, Managing an Information Security and Privacy Awareness and Training Program, The Definitive Guide to Security Inside the Perimeter (Realtime Publishers), The Shortcut Guide to Improving IT Service Support through ITIL (Realtime Publishers), and The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance. In addition, Rebecca is the leader of The Realtime IT Compliance Community where she posts to her IT Compliance weblog. You can contact Rebecca at: rebecca_herold@realtimepublishers.net.