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Microsoft Executive Tapped For Top DHS Cyber Post
krebsatwpost writes "The Department of Homeland Security has named Microsoft's 'chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist' Phil Reitinger to be its top cyber security official. Many in the security industry praised him as a smart pick, but said he will need to confront a culture of political infighting and leadership failures at DHS. From the story: 'Reitinger comes to the position with cyber experience in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2003, he was executive director of the Defense Department's Computer Forensics Lab. Before that, he was deputy chief of the Justice Department's Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property section, where he worked under Scott Charney, who is currently corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft.'"
I wonder if we will be seeing US-CERT standing up to Microsoft the way they did with this (a vector for conficker) with him in charge.
I have a sick feeling about this. This guy was surely part of the Microsoft effort to call this a feature. And what was this "political infighting" that the article alludes to? I hope it wasn't over whether to go after Microsoft for aiding in the creation of the largest botnet to date.
Ummm....the CIA and the FBI are not under the same agency now. The FBI is an agency of the Department of Justice and the CIA is an independent agency that quasi-reports to the Director of National Intelligence. The other agencies mentioned, the NSA and the police, are also not part of DHS. NSA is an agency of the Department of Defense and policing is a local function, run by any number of local agencies. But by all means, keep talking about things you obviously don't know anything about and cannot be bothered spending ten seconds on Google to confirm. :)