The US Department of Homeland Security is turning to hackers to help the 16-person advisory council (HSAC) obtain alternative viewpoints on cybercrime.
An article on FoxNews.com revealed the most recent committee member to be Jeff Moss, aka Dark Tangent. Mr. Moss is widely recognized as founder of the DefCon and Black Hat hackers’ conferences. He has worked in information security for accounting giant Ernst & Young and presently works as an independent cybersecurity consultant for a variety of corporations.
Mr. Moss looks forward to bringing “a skeptical outsider’s view” to the HSAC, but admits he was surprised by President Obama’s invitation to join the council stating, “I always figured that because of my associations in the past that I would be kind of out of the running for anything like this.”
The US’ strategy of inviting hackers to join governmental agencies is not unique. Britain is taking a precautionary stance on cyber warfare as well by hiring former computer hackers to join a newly formed security unit aimed at protecting cyberspace from foreign spies, thieves, and terrorists.
The cyber security prevention unit will be based at Britain’s Government Communications HQ (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, western England. Britain’s Security Minister, Lord Admiral Alan West said British government systems have probably come under cyber attack, but that he did not know of any specific cases where sensitive data had been lost.
Private organizations, individuals, and corporations should take a proactive stance on cyber crime and identity theft as well.
Chris Drake, FireHost’s Chief Executive Officer recommends every individual and professional organization maintaining a presence online to align themselves with experts in web site security. Speaking from experience he states, “You can prevent negative press, unnecessary expense, downtime and a ton of headache by identifying and resolving website security risks before problems strike.”
Read more about how FireHost can help identify vulnerabilities in your web site by visiting our Website Security Consulting services page.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
