Cyber Official: Agency CISOs Must Find 'Common Vision'

During his first 100 days in office, President-elect Donald Trump’s specific goals include canceling funding for sanctuary cities, imposing a federal hiring freeze, and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Though he has appointed a handful of prominent congressional cyber leaders to his transition team, it’s less clear how Trump plans to address current federal cybersecurity programs, and one senior cyber official is calling for tech leaders in the Obama administration to be careful about the way they communicate their mission to their future counterparts.

“What does the new federal CIO or what does the [incoming] administration inherit at this point?” Mark Kneidinger, acting director for Federal Network Resilience within the Department of Homeland Security, asked during an FCW event Tuesday. The change in leadership could affect the budget and staff dedicated to critical cyber programs, he explained.

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Efforts to shore up federal cybersecurity after large-scale breaches including the Office of Personnel Management hack have led to “significant gains, but we’re not at the end,” he said.

The new federal chief information security officer position—created under the Cybersecurity National Action Plan—could help the federal government flesh out ways to “bring CISOs together for a common vision ... equal to the type of community and collaboration that’s occurring in CIOs, and bring that across government.”

Kneidinger advised that when new executives come into an agency, the old guard should communicate their missions in a personal way.

"Make it real from the perspective of, ‘You're responsible for that information for U.S. citizenship. Cybersecurity is a key element to be able to protect that.’ If you treat it as cybersecurity and IT, segregated from the mission, this would be a more difficult conversation.”