Four senior cybersecurity officials are stepping down from their US government positions, raising concerns that an exodus of top leaders may make the federal government more vulnerable to hacking.
Two of those resigning – Sean Kelley, the chief information security officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Staropoli, the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security – had been in their jobs for just a few months.
The other two, Rob Foster, the Navy's chief information officer, and Dave DeVries, the director of information security and privacy at the Office of Personnel Management, are departing agencies for which computer security is a top priority. DeVries assumed his job shortly after the OPM suffered the largest known cyberattack in federal government history, and Foster had served in similar positions at the Department of Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ann Dunkin, the CIO of the EPA under President Barack Obama who was asked to leave by Trump’s transition team and now holds the same title for Santa Clara County, California, told BuzzFeed News that four executives leaving in such a short time raised red flags.
“There appears to be a concerted effort to remove the career CIOs who were there during the Obama administration,” Dunkin said. “During the last week we’ve seen four go? That smells.”
Though the four departing officials gave a variety of reasons for their decision to leave, one source suggested that it was likely due to frustration that multiple key positions within the agency were being left vacant.
This is troubling for one very important reason.
Donald Trump has suggested that Vladimir Putin would not have wanted him to win the election because he plans to build up the military.
But the facts are that Putin could not care less that Trump is wasting taxpayer money on bullets, bombs, and ships.
Putin's latest attack against America could never have been repelled by military aircraft or a regiment of soldiers. To stop those Russian hackers our government needed more highly trained and experienced cyber security experts.
So THIS agency is key to protecting us from the next attempts to hack our government agencies, political parties, or polling stations.
Which should make everybody wonder why increasing the spending and making sure it is fully staffed is not priority one for this administration.
Though sadly once again I think we already know the answer to that question.
Source http://ift.tt/2vvOK3P
