Last week, the resigning Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, gave her farewell address at the National Press Club.
She discussed a number of key DHS initiatives, including immigration and Congress’s failure to pass the DREAM Act, and her views on the Department’s efforts to improve security in response to terrorist threats. And while there were only two specific mentions of “cyber,” the media (ABC News and Federal News Radio, to name a few sources) has emphasized at least one such mention.
DHS has a full transcript of her speech available, or you can see a video of it here. Essentially, however, the comments that seem to have piqued the public’s interest are as follows:
Our country will . . . at some point, face a major cyber event that will have a serious effect on our lives, our economy, and the everyday functioning of our society. While we have built systems, protections and a framework to identify attacks and intrusions, share information with the private sector and across government, and develop plans and capabilities to mitigate the damage, more must be done, and must be done quickly.
(The other mention of “cyber” was hidden amongst comments on transnational criminal organizations and human trafficking).
Rather than finding these remarks as “ominous” as some reports have defined them, I tend to align this statement with the comments of Richard A. McFeely when he testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee just over a month ago—more “admiring the problem” presented by cyber threats. In any case, I wanted to make a transcript and video of the speech available to you as well as various reports on the Secretary’s cyber references.
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