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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.'"
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
Trust... worthy... computing at Microsoft... Isn't there a law that prohibits the words trustworthy and Microsoft in the same sentence?
I foresee a lot of Microsoft Security jokes in the following threads.
Here is one
Do you allow Phil Reitinger to be the top cyber security official?
Allow | Deny
There goes any chance of the DHS switching over to an linux/unix environment in the next decade.
greed@All_Evils:~#
Nope. New department, which is Department for Cannibal Relations.
Just me
this guy doesn't seem a half way bad pick. of course if it was my call i'd eliminate the whole DHS nonense and just fund the FBI,NSA,CIA and police properly. if those 4 agencies can't get it done wtf is the DHS going to add?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Isn't that like asking the head of AIG to be the officer of "financial responsibility"???
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.
While anecdotes from Windows users regarding how they tried to make an inherently insecure system secure could be extremely valuable, I doubt that anecdotes about how Microsoft executives tried to make their systems secure will be equally valuable. This was a ridiculous choice, and further undermines my initial hope that Obama might indeed turn out to be a good President.
Anticipate all persons attempting to enter the U.S. to be screened for explosives, hazardous chemical agents, firearms, radioactive materials, and open source software.
I like how this guy, whom I don't know much about, is painted a smart pick, coming as he does from the largest single computer security threat on the planet. Anybody recall that up to not very long ago at all security was not on their agenda? Simply because it made them more money not to care.
Oh, and that is remebering their own words and without mentioning the usual, such as that they are convicted monopolists too, their business practices suck, their code sucks, their customer service and sales techniques reminisces that of office depot, and so on and so forth.
The bottom line is that in politics you usually don't let the guy who fucked it up try and fix it. Unless perhaps the guy has friends in high places.
Did anyone else misread this as "smart prick"?
I think choosing someone from a company that is STILL under DoJ supervision for questionable behaviour has a couple of unwanted implications, especially since this guy was at board level.
It's only good news for foreign industrial espionage and botnet herders..
[...] just because this guy worked for Microsoft doesn't mean he lacks intelligence.
No, but it does mean that he was part of the team fighting US-CERT for months over autorun, at least. He likely helped resist an effort by a division of the department he is to head to fix a security problem that was so bad, they felt it endangered national security.
then he would be hiring Bruce Schneier for this job. I know he is disliked by a lot of industry but he is the man with the facts and the plan.
A sad note on the autorun activity. The challenges US-CERT has are complex as they have little ability to enforce sane standards and are just as the name says a response team. Once you formulate a response, someone has to execute it, and the federal government is one of the largest enterprises out there, certainly if you include all the contractors as well. It will be interesting to see if there is a shift away from bah to career feds.
At the same time, everyone makes mistakes and Phil has always shown himself to be a person who generally "gets it" compared to others I've bumped into at GLB. The same is true for any org, fed or not.
I don't know. Even if he just did nothing to stop Microsoft's resistance it would be bad.
If guys from CERT called me and said, "Hey, could you make The Autorun and NoDriveTypeAutorun registry values actually do something? We worried about this 10 million strong botnet," I'd probably comply. The reality was even worse; Microsoft wrote instructions for users to mitigate the problem which they knew were not effective.
The last thing I would do would be to start a PR war, which they did only to save face about something that has been criticized for over a decade. It's amazing... some slight marketing concern overrode what they were told was a matter of national security.
Funny... the wikipedia page on autorun was just stealth edited to remove all mention of the problem.
Why do you people think that the next new guy will be any different than the last one? I don't care WHO is elected. If they are Democrat or Republican, they will cater to their interests first and do the right thing last.
MSFT funded a lot of his campaign. This is paying them back by appointing one of their executives, or they use their buddies.
This happens every change of power.
I just get a royal kick out of all the "WOO CHANGE!" people all sitting in their chairs sober now with their mouth open at the TV sets staring in disbelief.
The only advantage is that this time our president is actually educated and articulate.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
There... fixed that for you.
Things that you occasionally compromise are generally called preferences.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The term might not be used as often, but the concept is alive and well
"the new chips will 'block unauthorized access to the frame buffer.' ...
There is a short list of parties who will be unauthorized to access your frame buffer: You. There is a long list of parties who are authorized to access your frame buffer, and that list includes Microsoft, Apple, AMD, Intel, ATI, NVidia, Sony Pictures, Paramount, HBO, CBS, Macrovision, and all other content owners and enablers that want your machine to themselves whenever youâ(TM)re watching, listening to, reading, or shooting monsters with their products. "
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/28/14OPcurve_1.html
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love