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WASHINGTON -- It was an inauspicious moment for Amit Yoran, the federal cybersecurity czar.
"Have you focused on a threat assessment?" asked Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, during a Feb. 24 hearing on cyberterrorism. The nation is "awash in a sea of vulnerability studies," said Kyl. But what is missing, he said, is "an accurate threat assessment" about what the country should worry about most: individual hackers, nations or terrorist organizations.
For several tense moments, Yoran sat in silence and then shielded his microphone as he whispered to a colleague from the FBI.
"Our protection strategy is threat-independent," Yoran finally replied. Rather than focusing on specific attack profiles, "we are developing programs and initiatives that apply to the gamut of attack approaches," he added.
"I still haven't heard you say you have done a threat assessment," responded Kyl.
Frustrated by the line of questioning, Yoran turned around and faced an underling from the DHS and pointed angrily to a sheet of paper on which was written "NIE."
"We'll have to wait and see what the NIE says," Yoran said, referring to a classified National Intelligence Estimate that was scheduled to be released within days of the hearing.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, also posed tough questions to Yoran, particularly about his position within the DHS bureaucracy.
"My concern is that we don't really take cyberterrorism as seriously as we should," said Feinstein, adding that she was troubled by the decision to move the position once held by former cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke from the White House to where it now sits, several layers down in the DHS bureaucracy. "Given your lack of seniority, how are you able to direct assistant secretaries in other directorates?"
Amit Yoran, the federal cybersecurity czar
However, Clarke and his immediate successor, Howard Schmidt, both acknowledged that the Office of Management and Budget, which has statutory authority for cybersecurity programs, has only three people working on the issue full time. "If they were serious about it, they would have 20 to 30 people working it," said Clarke.
When the hearing ended, Kyl was visibly frustrated with the inability to get direct answers from Yoran and said he didn't want to have "to grill anybody."
But it didn't appear to be Kyl's fault. A prominent IT industry executive who attended the hearing but didnot want to be identified by name characterized Yoran's performance as "terrible."
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