FBI Gets New Cyberdefense Leader Amid Capitol Hill Debate

May 11, 2001 —

The FBI last week appointed one of its veteran investigators to head the bureau's cyberdefense unit. Meanwhile, security experts and lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to debate how best to organize federal efforts to protect the nation's critical infrastructure from a devastating cyberattack.

FBI Director Louis Freeh announced the appointment of Ronald Dick as head of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC). Dick, a 24-year veteran of the agency with a background in investigating computer crimes, replaces Michael Vatis, who recently left the NIPC to become director of the Dartmouth College Institute for Security Technology Studies in Hanover, N.H.

Dick inherits the helm of the NIPC at a turning point for the 3-year-old organization. The NIPC has been criticized by security experts for what some have called a "fundamental inability to communicate" with the rest of the national security community.

That problem, coupled with the sheer number of organizations involved in national cybersecurity, has led some experts and members of Congress to call for a drastic overhaul and consolidation of federal cyberdefenses.

Dick's "solid credentials as an FBI agent should be an asset in the bureaucratic tugs-of-war ahead," said Steven Aftergood, an analyst at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

In one of his first steps toward demonstrating a coordinated federal approach to cybersecurity, Dick last week publicly introduced the Cyber Incident Coordination Group, a group of select cyberintelligence experts from the CIA, the National Security Council, the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office and the FBI. Despite these advances in cooperation, the Bush administration has already hinted at a preference for a more centralized management structure for cyberdefense issues.

Officials from private companies that own and operate the majority of the nation's infrastructures that are vulnerable to major cyberinduced disruptions have privately said a more streamlined federal effort would enhance cooperation between the government and industry.

Computerworld