Cybersecurity Ain't In Kansas Anymore

The Homeland Security Department does not expect a plan for protecting computers from hacking and other malicious activity to appear anytime soon.

"No ruby slippers" is the phrase that Philip Reitinger, deputy undersecretary of the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, said he wanted to stress this week at a lecture on cyberspace strategy that the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies hosted.

"If anybody in this space tells you that they've got a solution for you and it's going to work: all you've got to do is install it on your network; or they say 'X-entity,' whether it be a government entity or a private sector entity, is going to solve all of your problems -- then they are asking you to put on a pair of ruby slippers," he said. "There is no solution here but a long, hard slog to use the terms of our former secretary of Defense . . . this is hard, it is difficult and it is going to take a course of years."