Shepherd's Pi

Fact:   In marking its five-year anniversary earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security released a fact sheet touting the department’s accomplishments in that time, including “establish[ing] the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) to provide a 24-hour watch, warning, and response operations center, which in 2007 issued over 200 actionable alerts on cyber security vulnerabilities or incidents. US-CERT developed the EINSTEIN intrusion detection program, which collects, analyzes, and shares computer security information across the federal civilian government. EINSTEIN is currently deployed at 15 federal agencies, including DHS, and plans are in place to expand the program to all federal departments and agencies.”

Analysis:  I’m not going to write, in this post at least, about US-CERT and EINSTEIN in particular. I will point out that some writers have been skeptical of “Big DHS” progress on cyber security up to now, and the anniversary was an occasion for much cynical commentary. 

Charles Cooper in his popular Coop’s Corner blog on CNet wrote that “when it comes to network security, DHS appears to be more of a wet noodle than even its sharpest critics assumed… Talk with security consultants and former government officials involved with DHS and you come away wondering what these folks do all day.”

Continue reading →

Filed under: Government, innovation, Intelligence, Microsoft, R&D, Technology | Tagged: 2.0, AJAX, back-office, budget, bureaucracy, business, CERT, Charles Cooper, cio, cloud, cloud computing, cloud services, cm, CNET, cocom, cocoms, code, configuration management, Coops Corner, cyber defense, cyber security, cyberdefense, cybersecurity, danoviz, data, data centers, datacenter, datacenters, Department of Defense, development, DHS, DIA, DoD, e2.0, EA, einstein, enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise architecture, finance, gadget, gadgets, Government, hardware, Homeland Security, information assurance, information management, information security, infosec info sec, infrastructure, innovation, Intelligence, intrusion detection, iraq, IT, IT management, j2, korea, management, Mary Legere, mashup, mashups, Microsoft, Microsoft PopFly, Mike Pflueger, MNF-I, NCSD, network, network security, networks, operations management, ops management, patch management, Pentagon, pflueger, PopFly, programming, R&D, Rod Beckstrom, ROR, Ruby on Rails, S+S, SAIC, service-oriented, services, SOA, software, software plus services, south korea, tech, Technology, USFK, web, web services | 6 Comments »