security

On Monday, at an event with the Secretaries of State, Commerce, Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Obama Administration released its international strategy for cyberspace.  The strategy, described in a post from White House Cyber Coordinator Howard Schmidt, for the first time outlines a number of principles that the US will follow i

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) that delineates a strategy focusing on five mission priority areas for the homeland security enterprise. “Mission one is preventing terrorism and enhancing the security of the country.

Blog Co-Author:  Christopher Ballister

Michael J. Keegan

Obama weighs in on VA Commission’s health care suggestions. The Obama administration said it agreed with most of the VA Commission on Care’s recommendations to improve veterans health care, adding that the department had started efforts to implement many of them already. President Barack Obama said he disagreed with three of the 18 suggestions.

Federal Chief Information Officers, like their private sector CIO counterparts, lead the integration of information technology and organizational strategy.  CIOs must balance the daily needs of operational IT across their enterprise with how IT can contribute to longer term mission goals, while at the same time overseeing policy and resources for IT in a challenging fiscal environment.  U.S.

Global security and stability are becoming less obtainable due to a growing list of challenges. These challenges include, but are not limited to: proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; regional war among states; civil wars and failed states; international terrorism; global recession and poverty, international crime and drug cartels; and humanitarian crises and refugees. Many approaches have attempted to resolve these challenges; however, other means to resolve conflict and promote global security and stability are available and should be pursued more aggressively.  

Below are ideas that I shared on this topic yesterday as part of a panel discussion with the White House’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.

Background 

The policy framework that governs Federal IT with respect to cybersecurity has many pieces. Major laws include:

Co-Author:  Christopher Ballister, Security & Privacy, IBM

Experience from industry practices and industry research regarding personnel security provide interesting insights and lessons learned for government to consider.   These findings emerged from a recent roundtable discussion held in November and co-hosted by the IBM Center for The Business of Government and the National Academy of Public Administration.  The roundtable intended to help identify commercial benchmarks that can inform government choices.