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21–354 PDF 2005

THE INVISIBLE BATTLEGROUND

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, 

SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH AND 

DEVELOPMENT

OF THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 16, 2003

Serial No. 108–26

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house
SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California, Chairman 

JENNIFER DUNN, Washington 

C.W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana 

DAVID DREIER, California 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

PORTER J. GOSS, Florida 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

ERNEST J. ISTOOK, Jr., Oklahoma 

PETER T. KING, New York 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York 

JIM TURNER, Texas, Ranking Member 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

JANE HARMAN, California 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, 

New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, 

District of Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, 

U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas 

KEN LUCAS, Kentucky 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff 

UTTAM DHILLON, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director 

DAVID H. SCHANZER, Democrat Staff Director 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk 

Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and Development 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas, Vice Chairman 

SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

ROBERT W. GOODLATTE, Virginia 

PETER KING, New York 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

MARK SOUDER, Indiana 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California, ex officio 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, 

U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

KEN LUCAS, KENTUCKY 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas 

JIM TURNER, TEXAS, ex officio 

(II) 
(III)

CONTENTS 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Mac Thornberry, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas, and Chairman, Cybersecurity, Science, and Research and 

Development ......................................................................................................... 1

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of California, and Ranking Member, Cybersecurity, Science, and Research 

and Development 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 2

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 5

The Honorable Donna M. Christensen, a Delegate From the U.S. Virgin 

Islands ................................................................................................................... 24

The Honorable Jennifer Dunn, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Washington ....................................................................................................... 4 

The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of North Carolina ................................................................................................. 20

The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Rhode Island 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 33

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 6

The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 29

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 6

The Honorable John Linder, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Georgia .............................................................................................................. 23

The Honorable Ken Lucas, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Kentucky ........................................................................................................... 26

The Honorable Kendrick B. Meek, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Florida ..................................................................................................... 37 

The Honorable Pete Sessions, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas ................................................................................................................. 27

WITNESS

The Honorable Robert Liscouski, Assistant Secretary, Infrastructure Protection Directorate, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 7

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9 

(1)

WHAT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND 

SECURITY IS DOING TO MAKE AMERICA’S 

CYBERSPACE MORE SECURE 

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, 

SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 2118, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mac Thornberry [chairman of 

the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Thornberry, Sessions, Linder, Lofgren, 

Jackson–Lee, Christensen, Etheridge, Lucas, Langevin, and Meek. 

Also Present: Representative Dunn. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The hearing will come to order. I would like 

to welcome our witness and guests to today’s hearing, entitled The 

Invisible Battleground: What the Department of Homeland Security is Doing to Make America’s Cybersecurity More Secure. 

Over the past several months this subcommittee has received a 

number of perspectives on cybersecurity. We have held classified 

and unclassified briefings and hearings. We have heard from witnesses from academia, think tanks, technology industry, government agency, users, and others. Our goal has been to deepen our 

understanding of the issues involved and to gain a truer perspective on how and where cybersecurity fits into homeland security. 

Now, today, we will hear a progress report from the new Department of Homeland Security. 

From the first bills introduced in Congress to create a Department of Homeland Security, cybersecurity was one of those critical 

elements that was given to the new department, one of the functions where a number of government agencies would be brought together with greater emphasis and broader responsibilities. It was 

clear that if we were really going to modernize and strengthen 

Homeland Security, cybersecurity had to be a part of it. 

The final legislation, in fact, did that. It did not set cybersecurity 

apart, as some proposed, but included it as one of the critical infrastructures placed under the Directorate for Information Analysis 

and Infrastructure Protection. 

Since the Department began operations in March this year, it 

has brought some key people on board, although sometimes it has 

seemed to have taken a while. In June, it announced the creation 

of a National Cybersecurity Division; just yesterday a director was 
2

announced for that division. Yesterday, also, an emergency response partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and a US–

CERT was announced. So significant steps have been taken. 

In its strategy, released in February, the administration acknowledged that cyberspace is the nervous system of the other infrastructures, the control system of the country. Thus, the healthy 

functioning of cyberspace is essential to our economy and our national security. 

In our hearings so far, we have heard that cyber attacks are 

growing in number and complexity and in severity of the consequences. The recent bout with viruses and worms have shown 

that once they are launched, they are not easily contained; and as 

recently as last week, our hearing on the recent blackouts have 

shown again the interconnectiveness of various infrastructures. 

And yet there has been a lingering concern that cybersecurity has 

not been given the priority it deserves from the Department. 

Today, we are ready to hear from the administration on some answers to these important questions, such as: Where are we in implementing each of the five priorities contained in the national 

strategy; 

What can and should the Federal Government do to require or 

encourage better security for all of the IT infrastructure which is 

in private hands; and 

What about the human element where we have received testimony that up to two-thirds of the problems that are created are 

created by the interface of human beings with technology? 

In today’s world, our computers and cyber networks are not just 

a place to do business and conduct research and communicate with 

our friends. Cyberspace is an invisible battleground that we must 

secure and defend, for attacks are being launched against us every 

day attacks against the central nervous system of the country and 

against our economy and our security. We must be ready. And 

today we hope to hear from our witness that we are in better shape 

than we have been in the past. 

Before we turn to our witness, I am going to yield to our distinguished ranking member, my partner in this effort, Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Chairman Thornberry, for holding this 

hearing and for your continued outstanding leadership of this committee. 

I think the chairman did a great job in summarizing the work 

that this subcommittee has done to date. All the members of the 

subcommittee have taken the time to study this incredibly complex 

set of issues involving cybersecurity, and we certainly know more 

now than we did when we began our endeavor. 

I think all of us agree that the Nation’s cyber infrastructure remains vulnerable and that the Federal Government must provide 

leadership to better secure our systems in both the public and private sectors. My concerns about the Department of Homeland Security are that it is not providing sufficient leadership in the cyber 

arena, particularly in the following five areas: 

Reducing vulnerabilities: The Department is tasked with reducing vulnerabilities to government in critical asset computers as 

well as responding to cyber incidents. The number of cyber attacks 

and resulting damage, however, continues to increase. This past 
3

August was the worst ever for computer viruses. The Blaster, 

Welchia, and SoBigF viruses, along with other attacks, caused 

more than $32.8 billion in economic damages according to one digital risk assessments company. 

Two, coordination: Is the National Cybersecurity Division coordinating with the private sector, other government agencies, and 

State and local governments to identify vulnerabilities? Has the 

NCSD begun a national risk assessment? If so, when will it be 

complete? I am concerned that the Department is not providing 

quick leadership in this area. 

Departures from the administration: In the last 6 months the 

most senior Bush administration cyber officials have left the government. These individuals include Richard Clarke, the Special Advisor to the President for Cybersecurity; Howard Schmidt, the Vice 

Chair of the President’s Critical Infrastructure Board, and Clarke’s 

replacement; Ron Dick, the Director of the National Infrastructure 

Protection Center; and John Tritak, Director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office. I am concerned about these departures 

and that the National Cybersecurity Division may lack sufficient 

personnel and resources to operate effectively. 

Cyber priorities at DHS: Clearly, as the chairman has mentioned, cybersecurity is enormously important to the infrastructure 

of the Nation. I am worried that cybersecurity has been demoted 

in importance in the administration with the lead official for cyber 

issues reduced from a Special Advisor to the President, working in 

the White House, to a directorship very deep within the Department of Homeland Security. The Nation’s cyber chief must have 

both the access and resources to do the job, the cyber chief at DHS. 

It took the Department over 3 months to announce its choice for 

a leader of the NCSD. This delay is troublesome, and I am curious 

as to why it took the Department so long to settle on a candidate. 

I am also concerned about the number of other jobs that seem to 

be empty and vacant within NCSD, how many desks are empty. Is 

there anyone there to answer the phone? 

With these concerns in mind, I am very encouraged by the person chosen to lead the NCSD. Mr. Yoran currently serves as the 

Vice President of Managed Security Services Operation at 

Semantech Corporation, the Internet security firm headquartered 

in Cupertino, California, near my home. 

I am very familiar with the work of Semantech. It is one of the 

true bright spots in Silicon Valley, and its CEO, John Thompson, 

is a talented and thoughtful leader. I am hopeful that our new guy 

will provide needed leadership at the NCSD, and once he is on the 

job, I am going to tell him that he must candidly tell the chairman 

and me if he has the access and resources needed to accomplish his 

mission. If he is unable to do his job, Secretary Ridge should expect 

to hear from me and, I think, the chairman directly. 

As you can see, we have many concerns about the cyber program 

of the Department of Homeland Security. I am pleased that we finally today will hear directly from the top official at DHS on our 

efforts. And the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure has served 

as the acting chief since it was established on June 6, so I am sure 

he will address the concerns that I have raised; and I hope he will 
4

be able to reassure me that cybersecurity is, in fact, a priority at 

the Department. 

I thank the chairman for yielding. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank the gentlelady. 

Without objection, the distinguished vice chair of the full committee will sit with the subcommittee today, and the Chair would 

yield to the gentlelady from Washington for any opening statement 

she would like to make. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Liscouski, I am looking forward to your testimony. Thank 

you for joining us here today. We are eager to learn about the Department of Homeland Security’s most recent efforts, in fact, in 

June of this year to protect an important part of our Nation’s critical infrastructure, our cyber systems. 

In the wake of September 11, the leaders of this Nation have realized that securing our homeland against terrorist attacks also 

means that we need to think creatively about where our targets 

might be. We have visual reminders of many targets every single 

day. When we board an airplane, when we drive over a bridge, 

when we have our bags searched at football games. 

But we also have targets that are far less visible. The power grid 

is one such example. Cyberspace is another. And that is why we 

are here today. 

Your division, Mr. Liscouski, faces no small task. Securing cyberspace is an international issue, something I realized with greater 

awareness this summer when I addressed a group in London on 

cybersecurity, and was very happy to learn how involved the people 

of the British Government are in making sure we get this right. 

Also, we know that a cyber attack from overseas cannot be intercepted at the border, or at least is very difficult to be intercepted 

at any border, since there are no borders in the cyber world. 

This issue is also one that requires intense partnership with the 

private sector. The key to achieving a desired level of cybersecurity 

is utilizing and supporting the relationships that we have formed 

with the private sector, those on the ground doing research and development. Companies like Microsoft, which I represent here in the 

United States Congress, have realized that many of its priorities in 

business are in line with our Homeland Security priorities here in 

Congress. We are all working to prevent a situation where critical 

technological infrastructure is brought down. 

This committee has spent a significant amount of time looking 

into the successful public-private and cross-industry partnerships 

that already exist. I hope the Department continues to work closely 

with the private sector to reach a clear understanding of what a 

safe network system looks like. 

As the Department works to protect America’s technological infrastructure, it also must keep in mind the interconnectivity these 

cyber connections have with the world’s financial markets, transportation and communications systems. 

I am very happy the Department is taking this charge seriously, 

and I look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank the gentlelady. Does any other member 

wish to offer an opening statement at this time? 
5

Without objection, any member may submit an opening statement for the record. 

[The information follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ZOE LOFGREN, RANKING MEMBER, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, SCIENCE, AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Thank you Chairman Thornberry for holding this hearing and for your continued 

outstanding leadership of this subcommittee. 

Chairman Thornberry did a terrific job in summarizing the work that this subcommittee has done to date. All Members of this subcommittee should be commended for taking the time to study the incredible complex set of issues involving 

cybersecurity. 

We have learned a lot since this subcommittee first met at the beginning of the 

year. I think all would agree that our nation’s cyber infrastructure remains vulnerable, and that the federal government must provide leadership to better secure our 

systems in both the public and private sector. 

My concerns about the Department of Homeland Security are that it is just not 

providing sufficient leadership in the cyber arena, particularly in the following five 

areas. 

• Reducing Vulnerabilities: The Department is tasked with reducing 

vulnerabilities to government and critical asset computers, as well as responding to cyber incidents. The number of cyber attacks, and resultant damage, 

however, continues to increase. This past August was the worst month ever for 

computer viruses. The Blaster, Welchia, and SoBig.F viruses, along with other 

attacks, caused more than $32.8 billion in economic damages, according to one 

digital risk assessment company. 

• Coordination: Is the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) coordinating 

with the private sector, other government agencies, and state and local governments to identify vulnerabilities? Has the NCSD begun a national risk assessment? If so, when will it be complete? I am very concerned that the Department 

is just not providing leadership in this area. 

• Bush Administration Departures: In the last six months, the most senior 

Bush Administration cyber officials have left the government. These individuals 

include Richard Clarke, the special advisor to the president for cyber security; 

Howard Schmidt, the vice chair of the president’s critical infrastructure board 

and Clarke’s replacement; Ron Dick, the director of the National Infrastructure 

Protection Center; and John Tritak, director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office. 

I am very concerned about these departures and that the National Cyber Security 

Division may lack sufficient personnel and resources to operate effectively 

• Cyber priorities at DHS: Clearly, cyber security has been demoted in importance in the Administration with the lead official for cyber issues reduced from 

a special advisor to the President working in the White House, to a Directorship 

buried deep within the Department of Homeland Security. The nation’s cyber 

chief must have the both the access and resources to do the job. 

• Cyber Chief at DHS: In addition, it took the department over 3 months to announce its choice for a leader of the NCSD. This delay is troublesome, and I 

am curious as to why it took the department so long to settle on a candidate. 

I am also concerned about the number of other jobs that need to be filled within 

the NCSD. How many desks are empty? Is there anyone there to answer the 

phone? 

• With these concerns in mind, I am very encouraged by the person chosen to 

lead the NCSD. Mr. Amit Yoran currently serves as the Vice President of Managed Security Services Operations at Symantec Corporation, the internet security firm headquartered in Cupertino, California. I am very familiar with the 

work of Symantec. It remains one of the true bright spots in Silicon Valley, and 

its CEO, John Thompson is a talented and thoughtful leader. 

• I am hopeful that Mr. Yoran will provide needed leadership in the NCSD. 

Once he in on the job, I am going to tell him that he must candidly tell me 

if he has the access and resources needed to do his job. If he is unable to do 

his job, Secretary Ridge should expect to hear directly from me. 

As you can see, I have many concerns about the cyber program at the Department 

of Homeland Security. I am pleased that we finally get to hear directly from a top 

official at DHS today on its efforts. Robert Liscouski, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, has served as the acting chief of the National Cyber Security 

Division (NCSD) since it was established on June 6, 2003. 
6

I hope that Mr. Liscouski will address my many concerns and reassure me that 

cyber security is in fact a priority at the Department of Homeland Security. 

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES LANGEVIN, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome Assistant Secretary Liscouski, 

and express my appreciation for your willingness to come here for what I expect will 

be a very informative and productive hearing. We have heard so much from both 

the private and academic sectors about the state of information security and their 

hopes and fears about the Department of Homeland Security’s plans, and now we 

can find out about those plans directly from the source. 

Mr. Chairman, my greatest concern by far is the fact that no information has 

been forthcoming from DHS until now. While I am pleased to finally get the chance 

to discuss how information security fits into the overall plan for critical infrastructure protection, I must express my disappointment at how long it has taken. 

I believe it is the duty of this Subcommittee to determine what is being done, and 

what more can be done, to safeguard our critical infrastructure. While it is true that 

much of our information infrastructure lies with private industry, that should in no 

way reduce DHS’s efforts to secure and protect it. 

I am especially interested to hear Mr. Liscouski’s opinion on whether or not the 

structure and resources being devoted to cybersecurity at DHS are sufficient to handle the tasks for which it is now responsible. In addition, I hope to learn what, if 

any, attention is being paid to home users and their security, an important group 

that is often left out of ‘‘big picture’’ views of information security. Most importantly, 

this Subcommittee needs to know how DHS can best work in conjunction with our 

computer industry partners and other agencies in order to raise the bar for information security for all users. 

Again, I greatly appreciate Assistant Secretary Liscouski taking time to be here 

to discuss these vital issues with us. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. Chairman, Thank you for calling this important and provocative hearing. 

With the recent blackouts, and the viruses which have been plaguing the House 

computer systems, our infrastructure networks—and our dependence on them—is 

abundantly clear. It will be good to explore what the Administration is doing to 

make them more secure. 

Obviously, national security is foremost on everyon’s minds these days. As we 

work to improve our country’s security, it is important that we take inventory of 

all systems that are vital to the functioning of the nation, and do all we can to protect them. This certainly includes our computer networks systems that can be attacked anonymously and from far away. These networks are the glue that holds our 

nation’s infrastructure together. An attack from cyberspace could jeopardize electric 

power grids, railways, hospitals and financial services, to name a few. The recent 

blackouts made it clear how fragile and vulnerable our infrastructure may be. 

We are all aware of the growing number of internet security incidents. These incidents can come in many flavors: annoying attacks through emails, involving such 

things as computer viruses, denial of service attacks, and defaced web sites; or 

cyber-crime, such as identity theft. Such events have disrupted business and government activities, and have sometimes resulted in significant recovery costs. 

Despite the risks, our hospitals and power grids, our communications, our transportation systems, will probably always be critically dependent on computers and 

information flow and the satellites above us. A terrorist or other criminal tampering 

with those systems could devastate entire industries and potentially cost lives. 

While we have been fortunate so far in avoiding a catastrophic cyber attack, Richard 

Clarke, the President’s cyber-terrorism czar from last year, I guess I should say ‘‘two 

czars ago,’’ said that the government must make cybersecurity a priority or face the 

possibility of a ‘‘Digital Pearl Harbor’’. 

This was truly a frightening prospect. On paper, it seems we are taking bold steps 

toward securing cyberspace: we now have a National Cyber Security Division 

(NCSD) at the DHS, and its new U.S. Computer Emergency Response Team (US–

CERT). I would like to thank Mr. Liscouski for taking the time away from the challenges that face him at the DHS to enlighten us on the progress the Department 

and the Administration are making on this important front. 
7

We have been working on this subject for the past year in the Science Committee 

as well. One thing I have been disturbed by is the lack of good data on the threats 

that face us, and the absence of a solid assessment of the risks we face. How can 

we know how much to invest, and where, if we do not know those basics? 

I want to know the magnitude of the threat out there, and how Americans are 

dealing with it. What is the role of the private sector, and of private citizens, and 

of the federal government? Are we putting adequate resources and energy into fulfilling that role? 

I look forward to the dialogue. Thank you.

Mr. THORNBERRY. With that, we will turn to our witness. We 

want to welcome, Robert P. Liscouski, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection of the Department of Homeland Security. 

I understand this is your first opportunity to testify in front of 

Congress. We appreciate your being here and you are recognized. 

Your full statement will be made part of the record, and you are 

recognized to summarize it as you wish. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROBERT P. LISCOUSKI, 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE 

PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you and good morning, Chairman Thornberry and members of the committee. I am pleased to appear before 

you this morning to discuss some of our efforts to protect and secure our Nation’s critical infrastructure. 

From the beginning of DHS, IAIP and the Infrastructure Protection Office for which I am responsible recognized the equal importance of protecting physical as well as cyber assets. Thus, we created the National Cybersecurity Division on June 6 of this year. 

Today, I am here to give you a progress report on where we are 

now and where we will be going in the future to implement the 

President’s national strategy to secure cyberspace. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Excuse me, Mr. Liscouski, would you pull the 

microphone just a little closer to you. It will be easier for us to 

hear. Thank you. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. All right. 

I am pleased to announce this morning that Amit Yoran has 

been formally named as the Director of the NCSD, effective today. 

Mr. Yoran is a strategic thinker, a disciplined leader, who understands the unique threats and vulnerabilities manifested in cyberspace and is the individual who will further accelerate our efforts 

in building a full NCSD team and increasing the strength of our 

public and private sector partnerships. 

Building upon the formation of the NCSD, the Department has 

worked to assemble a consolidated and coordinated team of 

cybersecurity professionals. Despite the many organizational and 

cultural challenges associated with integrating these elements into 

one entity, our initial efforts have yielded very effective positive 

and tangible results. The creation of the NCSD has enabled the initial consolidation of three 24x7 cyber watch capabilities; formulation of standardized incident handling procedures for responding to 

cybersecurity events; and the creation of a single national focal 

point for cybersecurity leadership for prevention, protection, and 

response to incidents. 

The most recent accomplishments of the NCSD is the creation of 

the National Computer Emergency Response Team or the US–
8

CERT. The US–CERT, in collaboration with the private sector and 

leading response organizations, will improve warning and response 

time to security incidents by fostering the development of detection 

tools and utilizing common commercial incident and vulnerability 

reporting protocols. This will increase the flow of critical security 

information throughout the Internet community. 

I would like to take a moment to address our rationale behind 

the decision to integrate physical and cybersecurity within the IAIP 

directorate. I believe that this approach is the correct one for three 

reasons. 

First, cybersecurity cannot stand alone. The critical interdependencies between cyber and physical domains demand that we coordinate our intelligence and our protection efforts. 

Second, with the creation of the NCSD, we have for the first time 

implemented a single point of contact for cybersecurity within the 

Federal Government that will interact with other agencies, private 

security, the resource communities and State and local governments on a 24x7 basis. 

Third, though the director of the NCSD serves as a technical and 

operational lead for cybersecurity issues, cybersecurity will also be 

championed by Under Secretary Frank Libutti and myself. And we 

are committed to the implementation and the full funding of the 

NCSD as one of the top priorities for the IAIP directorate and for 

DHS at large. 

As demonstrated by recent events, the consequences of cyber attack can manifest with little or no warning, on a widespread scale, 

with tremendous speed. Impacts can quickly escalate across multiple infrastructures, resulting in widespread disruption of essential services, significant economic losses, and potentially endangering public safety and national security. The NCSD, therefore, is 

implementing its objectives for the timely execution of three key 

mission areas—outreach, prevention, and remediation. 

The NCSD is aggressively pursuing an outreach agenda that will 

provide education tools for children, parents, teachers, business 

owners, and business operators. NCSD, through the development of 

partnerships with government agencies such as the Federal Trade 

Commission, nonprofits like the National Cybersecurity Alliance 

and Internet service providers, will work to establish and enhance 

awareness programs for all users at all levels. We will be making 

announcements on our progress in the coming weeks. 

NCSD partnerships with industry, academia, and government 

will be the foundation for program implementation for protective 

and preventive measures to reduce America’s vulnerabilities to 

cyber attacks. It is crucial that we improve existing public and private partnerships whose missions are consistent with the NCSD. 

A prime example is the National Cybersecurity Alliance whose 

members have committed their time and resources to regularly 

educating the home consumer and small businesses on good security practices. Proactive response and recovery efforts associated 

with the recent Blaster worm and SoBig virus offer the best evidence of the value of partnerships. SoBig spread faster and more 

aggressively than any previous e-mail virus, affecting millions of 

residential business and government computers worldwide. 
9

We recognize a cyber attack could easily cascade across multiple 

infrastructures, causing widespread, rapid disruption of essential 

services and impacting our national economy, public safety, and national security. The NCSD is committed to closely working with 

other government and law enforcement agencies, private industry, 

as well as academia, to help secure our cyberspace from future and 

potentially more serious malicious exploitation. 

To this end, I am pleased to announce that we are beginning to 

organize a National Cybersecurity Summit for later this fall in 

order to assemble key industry and government leaders to energize 

decisions like several key national cybersecurity issues. 

The Internet and cyber technologies have greatly improved both 

the quality of life for our citizens and the efficiency and the productivity of our business and our government. These societal and economic benefits are not without their costs. Malicious actors are devising new and ingenious ways to exploit vulnerabilities in our 

cyber world, to disrupt our quality of life, and threaten our national and economic security. Much like the larger global war on 

terrorism, this effort will take time, resources, dedication, energy, 

and hard work. But in the few short months we have been in existence, we have made great strides and we look forward to working 

with the Members of Congress, this committee, our government 

partners, the private sector, and the international community in 

this endeavor. 

I come before you today to dedicate ourselves to this common 

goal: one team, one fight, one mission, to protect the United States 

of America. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today and I look 

forward to your questions. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Liscouski follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. ROBERT LISCOUSKI

Good morning Chairman Thornberry and Members of the committee. My name is 

Robert Liscouski, I am the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection and 

Acting Director of the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) within the Department of Homeland Security. I am pleased to appear before your Subcommittee to 

discuss some of our efforts to protect and secure our Nation’s critical infrastructure. 

Last week’s observances of the two-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks offer a stark reminder of the threats and vulnerabilities we as a Nation still 

confront. The Department’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate (IAIP) was established by the Homeland Security Act to lead the Nation’s 

efforts to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks like 

those perpetrated on 9/11. These terrorist acts may manifest in many forms, including physical and cyber attacks against our critical infrastructure, key assets, and 

national icons. Both physical and cyber assets have vulnerabilities that may be exploited by our enemies. The highly interconnected nature of our infrastructure 

makes these physical and cyber weaknesses impossible to separate—and difficult to 

address separately. Our protection methodology leverages an integrated physical/

cyber protection approach to reduce vulnerabilities and to optimize our response 

when an attack does occur. 

From the beginning of DHS, the IAIP directorate which includes the Infrastructure Protection Office for which I am responsible, has implemented a dedicated organization committed to protecting physical assets. The organization is called the 

Protective Security Division (PSD). Recognizing the equal importance of protecting 

cyber assets, we created the National Cyber Security Division on June 6 of this 

year. These organizations within the Infrastructure Protection Office work together 

to implement the integrated protection methodology that I previously discussed. 

Today, I am here to give you a progress report on where we are now, and what we 

have in store for the coming months and years to implement the President’s National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. 
10

I am pleased to announce that Amit Yoran has been formally named as the Director of the NCSD effective today. Mr. Yoran is a strategic, disciplined leader who understands the unique threats and vulnerabilities manifested in cyberspace and is an 

individual capable of managing a diverse, highly technical organization Mr.Yoran 

was most recently the Vice President for Managed Security Services at Symantec 

Corporation where he was primarily responsible for managing security infrastructures in 40 different countries. Before working with Symantec, Mr. Yoran was the 

Founder, President and CEO of Riptech, Inc., a leader in outsourced information security management and monitoring. Before working in the private sector, he was 

the Director of the Vulnerability Assessment Program within the Computer Emergency Response Team at the Department of Defense and the Network Security Manager and the Department of Defense where he was responsible for maintaining operations of the Pentagon’s network Mr. Yoran’s leadership and respect within the information security industry will further accelerate our efforts in building the full 

NCSD team, and increasing the strength of our public and private sector partnerships. 

Since its formal establishment in June, the National Cyber Security Division has 

worked closely with our partners in the private sector, including coordinating response and mitigation of the Blaster worm and SoBig virus. Without these coordinated efforts, the significant economic impact of these attacks could have been much 

worse. In each situation, the Department’s cyber security experts demonstrated the 

ability to quickly reach out to the security community, rapidly assess emerging 

threats, and provide timely warnings to government, industry, and the general public. These initial efforts were crucial—they allowed the NCSD to establish its credibility and demonstrate its value to the national and international cyber security 

community. 

Since June, IAIP has been assembling a consolidated and coordinated team of 

cyber security professionals. These experts were integrated from portions of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), Critical Infrastructure Assurance 

Office (CIAO), Energy Assurance Office (EAO), and the Federal Computer Incident 

Response Center (FedCIRC). Despite the many organizational and cultural challenges associated with integrating these elements into one entity, our initial efforts 

have yielded effective and tangible results. Creation of the NCSD has enabled:

• Planning for consolidation of three 24x7 cyber watch centers;

• Formulation of a standardized incident handling procedure for responding to 

cybersecurity events; and

• Creation of a single national focal point for cybersecurity leadership for prevention, protection, and response to incidents. 

The most recent accomplishment of the NCSD is the creation of the National 

Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). The US-CERT, in collaboration 

with the private sector and leading response organizations, will improve warning 

and response time to security incidents by fostering the development of detection 

tools and utilizing common commercial incident and vulnerability reporting protocols. This will increase the flow of critical security information throughout the Internet community by leveraging the extensive resources and brand of the Federal Government and Carnegie Mellon’s CERT/Coordination Center. The CERT®/CC is a 

part of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and is affiliated with Carnegie 

Mellon’s new Cyber Security Laboratory. A key enabler of this partnership is the 

19 years of leadership demonstrated by the U.S. Department of Defense in its sponsorship of the SEI, a federally funded research & development center. By integrating capabilities from the Government (FedCIRC), Academia (The CERT®/CC), 

and the private sector (vendors of security products and services), the US-CERT will 

provide a coordination center that, for the first time, links public and private response capabilities to facilitate communication across all infrastructure sectors. 

Before detailing our future programs and initiatives, I would like to begin by providing rationale behind the decision to treat physical and cyber security on part 

with one another, within the IAIP directorate. I believe that this approach is the 

correct one for three reasons. 

First, cyber security cannot be a ‘‘stand alone’’ effort. As I described earlier in my 

statement, the success of DHS as a Department, and IAIP specifically, depends on 

our ability to protect the entire critical infrastructure against physical and cyber attacks together. We realize the dominant components common to all 13 critical infrastructures are physical and cyber components. To best protect the country against 

attack, careful integration of both components is required to achieve a holistic view 

of critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. In fact, this view is validated by a common 

criticism voiced by the private sector and security experts preceding the creation of 

the Department: physical and cyber security were being addressed by the govern-
11

ment independently. We believe the physical and cyber domains are inextricably 

linked and vulnerabilities cannot be effectively analyzed independently. Placing both 

responsibilities under one Under Secretary and one Assistant Secretary has ensured 

successful integration. 

Second, the NCSD will identify, analyze, and reduce cyber threats and 

vulnerabilities; disseminate threat warning information, coordinate incident response; and provide technical assistance in Continuity of operations and recovery 

planning. With the creation of the NCSD, we have for the first time, implemented 

a single point of contact for the prevention, protection, and coordination of response 

to incidents, that will interact with all federal agencies, private industry, the research community, State and local governments, and other partners on a 24x7 basis. 

Third, while the Director of the NCSD serves as the technical and operational 

lead for cybersecurity issues, it is important to remember that the cyber security 

issue will now be championed within IAIP by Under Secretary Frank Libutti, and 

myself. The Under Secretary and I have already demonstrated our commitment to 

developing a world-class cyber security capability within the Department and believe the continued implementation and full funding of the NCSD is one of the top 

priorities for the IAIP Directorate. Furthermore, cyber security research and development will be conducted in partnership with the Department’s Science and technology Directorate under the leadership of Under Secretary Charles McQueary. 

Now I would like to focus the remainder of my testimony on our plans for building 

on our accomplishments of the last three months to fully implement the operational 

NCSD in the coming months.

The Mission: Outreach, Prevention, and Remediation 

As demonstrated by recent events, the consequences of a cyber attack can manifest with little or no warning, on a widespread scale, and with tremendous speed. 

Impacts can quickly cascade across multiple infrastructures, resulting in widespread 

disruptions of essential services, significant economic losses, and potentially endangering public safety and national security. The National Cyber Security Division, 

therefore, is implementing its objectives through the timely execution of three key 

mission areas—Outreach, Prevention, and Remediation.

Outreach 

The NCSD will create, in coordination with the Office of Personnel Management 

and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, cyber security awareness 

and education programs and partnerships with consumers, businesses, governments, 

academia and international communities. 

An effective outreach program lays the foundation for the ultimate success of all 

mission areas of the NCSD. Accordingly, the NCSD championing the implementation of awareness efforts and campaigns that use a multi-level approach to provide 

awareness/educational tools for all users; for the home, awareness tools for children, 

parents and teens; customized approaches for small, medium, and large businesses; 

and for government agencies. Every level of user must realize they have an equally 

important role in the security of cyberspace. The end user, for example, needs to 

be informed about the technical aspects of security and about their role as gatekeepers in a larger data and information sharing community. 

The NCSD is aggressively pursuing an outreach agenda that will target groups 

of citizens by providing education tools for children, parents, teachers and business 

owners and operators. There are many effective existing programs and the NCSD 

is developing partnerships with government agencies, such as the Federal Trade 

Commission, non-profits like the National Cyber Security Alliance, and the Internet 

Service Providers to establish and enhance awareness programs for all users. We 

are working to build on existing public/private outreach groups to assist the spectrum of users in securing their systems through implementation of effective security 

practices. 

One quick example is establishing National Cyber Security Days. As Americans 

change their clocks twice a year, to Daylight Savings and Standard times, the partnership of the NCSD and the National Cyber Security Alliance’s StaySafeOnline 

Campaign asks consumers to use the days as reminders to assess their own computer security. Computer security needs to be a regular consideration when protecting a home. Just as consumers remember to lock their doors, so too should they 

remember to secure their computers. As a result of this partnership with the NCSD 

many other partners in the business and government communities are starting to 

design their national ad campaigns around these two dates to further amplify this 

important message. 

At the same time, the NCSD is partnering with other federal agencies, including, 

Commerce, NSA and DOD, state and local government, private industry, and academia to promote a well-trained IT security workforce.
12

Prevention 

Consistent with law and policy, NCSD will coordinate closely with the Office of 

Management and Budget and NIST regarding the security of Federal systems and 

coordinate with Federal law enforcement authorities, as appropriate. NCSD will leverage other DHS components including the Science and Technology Directorate, 

the U.S. Secret Service and the Department’s privacy officer. 

To achieve its mission, the NCSD is working with State and local governments, 

and the private sector to conduct infrastructure vulnerability field assessments, 

while providing the best and most cost-effective prevention and protection strategies 

for ‘‘at risk’’ infrastructure facilities, assets, and personnel. Due to the diversity of 

the critical infrastructure, cyber protection strategies for each sector must be customized based on the unique geographical and business operating models of that 

sector. Due to the highly interconnected yet physically distributed nature of our critical infrastructure, prevention and protection strategies are prioritized based on regional, State, and local needs and on the need for cross-sector coordination. 

We recognize that collaborating with industry, academia, and Government is a 

key focus of our NCSD activities. With partnerships as the foundation for program 

implementation, the NCSD will coordinate implementation of protective and preventative measures to reduce America’s vulnerability to cyber attacks. It is crucial 

that we improve existing public-private partnerships whose missions are consistent 

with NCSD functions. A prime example is the National Cyber Security Alliance, 

whose members have committed their time and resources to regularly educating the 

home consumer and small businesses on good security practices. 

With nearly all of the backbone of cyberspace owned by the private sector, it is 

imperative that the NCSD strengthen its relationships with them. Fortunately, 

there are mechanisms already in place to facilitate cooperation between industry 

and government on cyber security, most notably the National Coordinating Center 

(NCC) for Telecommunications and its Telecommunications Information Sharing 

and Analysis Center (ISAC), which are each part of the National Communications 

System (NCS) and IAIP. These entities provide the Department with direct access 

to leading industry operational and security experts whose knowledge and insights 

may prove crucial in managing a cyber incident. The NCSD, as part of IAIP, also 

helps to support two CEO-level advisory committees—The National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC),—which provide advice and counsel on national security telecommunications and critical infrastructure matters, including cyber security issues. 

By acting as a champion for creating a national and international culture of cyber 

security, we aim to promote a security culture at the CEO-level and demonstrate 

to corporate leaders that cyber security ultimately promotes the resiliency of their 

infrastructures, protects the interests of their shareholders and corporate brand, 

and preserves value and competitive advantage for businesses that implement security best practices.

Remediation 

As I discussed earlier, the proactive response and recovery efforts associated with 

the Blaster worm and SoBig computer virus offer the best evidence of the value of 

partnerships. SoBig spread faster and more aggressively than any previous email 

virus, affecting millions of residential, business, and government computers worldwide. Internet traffic was substantially affected by these two events, causing a 25 

percent increase in internet traffic and infecting over 600,000 computers. It had a 

significant impact on cross-sector communication and impacted productivity. 

In August, when the Blaster worm surfaced on the Internet, the NCSD issued a 

timely warning to security professionals, suggesting that Internet service providers 

and other corporate network administrators shut off inbound traffic to ports 135, 

139, and 445 to block the spreading of the Blaster infection. Blaster took advantage 

of a known vulnerability in a Windows operating system component that handles 

messages sent using the remote procedure call (RPC) protocol. RPC is a common 

protocol that software programs use to request services from other programs running on servers in a networked environment. Vulnerable systems were compromised 

automatically without any interaction from users. Through the advisory, users were 

instructed to install the appropriate software patches to prevent their computers 

from being infected. In the following weeks, the NCSD continued to issue advisories 

warning security professionals that a variant of the Blaster worm, dubbed ‘‘nachi,’’ 

‘‘welchia’’ or ‘‘msblast.D,’’ was proliferating. 

Working with Internet security researchers and experts from private industry and 

academia, the Division and the FBI uncovered malicious code hidden within the 

SoBig worm on twenty master machines that was programmed to launch a massive 

denial of service attack. Federal authorities located the twenty computers infected 
13

with this variant of the worm and asked their Internet service providers to shut 

down their Internet access. As a consequence, the second wave of attacks never materialized. 

The NCSD recognizes that a cyber attack could cascade across multiple infrastructures, causing widespread rapid disruption of essential services, and impacting 

our national economy, public safety, and national security. While this generation of 

worms has not yet resulted in irreversible damage (albeit slowing communication, 

overstuffing e-mail inboxes, and reducing productivity), the NCSD is committed to 

working closely with other government and law enforcement agencies, private industry, as well as academia to help secure our cyberspace from future, and potentially 

more serious malicious exploitation. 

To this end, I am pleased to announce that we are beginning to organize a National Cyber Security Summit for later this fall, in order to assemble key industry 

and government leaders to energize decisions on several key National cyber security 

issues. Key goals of the summit are to—. 

• Produce a common threat and vulnerability reporting protocol to enhance prevention and response capabilities and to drive a standards-based system for 

communicating threats and vulnerabilities across the Nation; 

• Develop a Vulnerability Reduction Initiative to significantly reduce 

vulnerabilities based upon improved evaluation standards, tools and measures 

for software, new tools and methods for rapid patch deployment, and best practice adoption of security for cyber systems across the critical infrastructure in 

partnership with industry and the leading research universities in the United 

States; 

• Create an outreach and education partnership to offer training and awareness 

to 50 million home users and small businesses in cyber security within one 

year; and 

• Formulate and ratify a National Cyber Security Road Map that defines milestones, work streams, and metrics for ‘‘raising the bar’’ of cyber security across 

the United States and identify work stream leads from government and industry. 

Since its inception, the National Cyber Security Division has delivered on its commitment to provide a centralized coordination point for the collection and dissemination of protective measures to reduce vulnerabilities and risks to the cyber infrastructure through implementation of the Cyber Security Tracking Analysis and Response Center (CSTARC). As announced in our press release on Monday morning, 

CSTARC, through a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT®/Coordination Center, will evolve to a new capacity as a national Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT). The US-CERT will enhance our Nation’s prevention of 

and response to cyber threats and vulnerabilities. There are currently over two hundred private sector groups, public sector groups, and universities that operate computer emergency response teams (CERTs) within the United States. Many of these 

groups have varying levels of informal and formal partnerships with each other and 

with the US-CERT. This initiative will harness this massive capability to significantly increase America’s ability to protect against, and respond to, massive scale 

cyber attacks. 

We view the US-CERT as a fundamental element of the DHS strategy to ensure 

timely notification of all types of attacks, working toward having, within a year, an 

average of a 30-minute response to any attack. Moreover, the US-CERT will provide 

a coordination center that, for the first time, links all public and private response 

capabilities and facilitates communication across all sectors. US-CERT will also lead 

collaboration with the private sector to develop and distribute new tools and methods for detecting and identifying vulnerabilities in an effort to significantly reduce 

vulnerabilities. Lastly, US-CERT will help improve incident prevention methods and 

technologies by identifying and disseminating best practices and working with the 

private security industry to improve warning sensor data collection and analysis.

Conclusion 

The Internet and cyber technologies have greatly improved both the quality of life 

for our citizens and the efficiency and productivity of our businesses and our government. These societal and economic benefits are not without their costs. Malicious 

actors are devising new and ingenious ways to exploit vulnerabilities in those cyber 

systems, to disrupt our quality of life and to threaten our national and economic 

security. Our ever-growing reliance on the Internet and cyber systems compels us 

to counter these threats and vulnerabilities by building productive partnerships 

with key stakeholder communities in cyberspace, improving how we share information, and developing and fielding innovative technical solutions. As the focal point 

for the prevention, protection and coordination of response to incidents, the NCSD 
14

must achieve its mission of ensuring the security of cyberspace. We know this will 

not be an easy assignment. Much like the larger global war on terrorism, this effort 

will take time, resources, dedication, energy, and hard work to succeed. But in a 

few short months, we have made great strides and are excited about the possibilities 

that the future offers. With the appointment of the new Director of the NCSD, we 

have focused leadership to guide us forward, to forge new alliances and partnerships, to implement new tools and capabilities, and to provide a vision for cyberspace security. 

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. I would be pleased 

to answer any questions that you have at this time.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. And I can assure you that this 

subcommittee shares your goal of working together to help the 

country be safer. Let me just ask one brief question before yielding 

to Ms. Lofgren. 

It seems as though that the Department has made several significant announcements yesterday and today. The establishment of 

the US–CERT, the naming of the Director for the Cybersecurity Division, and now this National Cybersecurity Summit, which will 

take place later this fall. 

Why is it all coming down now? What has been your decisionmaking process, and why are we just having these decisions made. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, Mr. Chairman, it is a function of our timing 

is, we have been working very hard since June, and as you well 

know, we have engaged in a lot of other activities in standing up 

the division. 

One of the things I have been working hard at over the past few 

months is putting the right team in place to ensure we could actually carry out the things that we announced just these past couple 

of days. So it is one. 

We could have announced them, or at least our intention is to 

execute on these objectives, earlier; but the framework from which 

we are operating is really one in which we plan carefully, but 

quickly, and then with the ability to execute. 

So I am here before you today to say that our announcements are 

timed with our ability to execute, not so much as anything else, but 

just a function of the ability that we are working very hard, and 

we have got a good plan together, and we finally have our teams 

together to be able to execute on the strategies we have identified. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Yield to Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a few questions. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, the President had a 

Special Advisor on Cybersecurity, but that position has been eliminated. Will the director of the Cybersecurity Division have direct 

contact with the President or with Secretary Ridge on cybersecurity 

issues? What kind of access will this individual have? 

This is kind of a nerdy subject we all know that and yet it is very 

important; and it is important that the decision makers, who are 

not necessarily living and breathing computer, be contacted and be 

aware of the scope of the issues. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. Mr. Yoran—first of all let me explain. 

Our management style at DHS is, one, a very direct one. Working for Under Secretary Libutti and Secretary Ridge requires one 

to be constantly engaged to ensure that the leadership knows what 

is going on. I mean, this is a constant dialogue we have at senior 
15

management levels, particularly as it relates to infrastructure protection. Information analysis, because of the very uniqueness of 

what IAIP brings to the Department in terms of a function, is one 

which is heavily relied upon by the senior management of DHS. So 

I can tell you from personal experience that Secretary Ridge, Under 

Secretary Libutti reach down into the organization at any level 

that they think they need to get the answers to questions that they 

have, and we are very responsive. 

To that end, Secretary Ridge has been personally involved in not 

just overseeing the implementation or the creation of this division, 

but engaged with me in identifying the type of leadership we need 

and what we need to do to be successful in this endeavor. So if Mr. 

Yoran is going to have the the pleasure, because it is indeed a 

pleasure to work with the senior leadership, but more importantly 

the responsibility of reporting directly. My management style, 

Under Secretary Libutti’s management style, is not one in which 

we say, You have got to go through a, quote, unquote, ‘‘chain of 

command.’’ Ours is pretty much, You are the expert, you have got 

the con, you take the lead, answer the questions, take the initiatives. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Okay. That is very reassuring. Thank you. 

One of the questions I was mentioning to the chairman, there is 

modeling going on around the country, university based, and I am 

interested in whether the Cybersecurity Division will be working 

with the Science and Technology Directorate on modeling in simulation issues and whether cyber threats are going to be integrated 

into these efforts. Can you give us a progress update on that? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. Let me take the partnership with 

S&T first because I think that is where it starts. 

The Cyber Division has got a direct nexus into Under Secretary 

McCrery’s S&T organization, the Directorate. We have a deputy director named in the research center in S&T. So we are directly 

partnering by driving requirements in S&T that we have identified 

from the field, not just from our own efforts, but through our partnerships with State and local governments, with the industry, with 

our international partners. We are taking those requirements and 

driving them into S&T. That is point number one. 

As it relates to the universities, our relationship with the US–

CERT at Carnegie Mellon clearly is one example. We have many 

other relationships with universities and labs to do modeling. We 

have got the benefit of having the opportunity of reaching out to 

lab relationships we have currently that came over to us when we 

formed DHS earlier this year, so we have already been working on 

computer simulations for different types of modeling for attacks 

and for things that relate to cybersecurity as well as other parts 

of our infrastructure. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Can I ask you about this US–CERT? I saw the announcement. We have the Federal Government has been a partner 

with CERT at Carnegie Mellon for many years. And how is US–

CERT going to be different than regular old CERT? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, I would like to recognize the Department 

of Defense obviously for taking the initiative back some almost 20 

years ago, after the Morris worm, to establish the CERT/CC capa-
16

bility. That relationship has allowed many parts of the Federal 

Government to take advantage of the CERT capabilities. 

CERT, as you well know, remains one of the premier capabilities 

in the world, and to that end, the partnership that DHS is establishing is a key one for us because we are increasing our level of 

financing to the CERT. So therefore we are increasing the resources available directly to DHS, vis-a`-vis the CERT, to do things 

not just around the incident response area, but also looking at establishing a malicious code lab there, as well as other enhancements through financing, through partnerships, through positioning people at the CERT, working closely with them to ensure 

that US–CERT can mature to a capability that is going to serve the 

National Strategy for Cyberspace. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Finally, one of the responsibilities of your office is 

to coordinate outreach to State and local governments, and I am interested in how you are doing that. Is there an office that is responsible for outreach? Is outreach institutionalized? And in particular I am interested not just in what we might think of as 

cybersecurity, but the physical infrastructure that allows the cyber 

world to exist; and I continue to be concerned about the level of information and coordination between the Federal Government and 

State and local, especially local police officials, in terms of 

vulnerabilities that exist to the physical infrastructure. 

Because we are very concerned with the viruses and worms and 

cyber attack, but the model for terrorists remains some maniac 

with a bomb; and so we have vulnerabilities in that area that I am 

not yet convinced we have addressed adequately. And really our 

first line of defense is going to be local, not Federal officers. 

So can you address that issue for me? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. And I agree with you; I don’t think 

we have addressed it adequately yet either. We are working hard 

to do that. We have got a number of mechanisms for outreach, and 

let me just articulate those. 

We have a branch in the NCSD dedicated to outreach. It is headed up by a very seasoned professional. Sally McDonald, who came 

to us from the Fed CERT, has done a tremendous amount of effort 

in outreach and has got a lot of experience in this area, so we are 

relying upon Ms. McDonald to really take the programs where we 

need to go. 

We have a number of programs currently established at the 

NCSD. StaySafeOnline Campaign is one of the dominant ones in 

which we are using that to reach many different levels of constituents in the cyber world. That is just one example. 

We are partnering up as you may know, we have got relationships with ISACS, the Information Sharing Analysis Centers. 

There is an IT ISAC, but there is a cyber component in every ISAC 

we use for outreach. 

We have our advisory systems in which we put out notices about 

threats or incidents and events relating to the cyber world. 

We are going to continue to use the private sector for outreach. 

Our partnerships with the private sector are absolutely key for us 

to ensure that we have got the right things, the right awareness, 

going on because, as you are fully aware, this problem is not necessarily just a technological problem. In fact, most computer secu-
17

rity professionals would articulate that the problem is typically not 

the technology; it is the implementation of proper standards and 

procedures to ensure that the technology is used accordingly, 

patches are made, remediation work is being done. And those are 

process issues; those are not technological issues. 

It is all about awareness training, so we are reaching out using 

universities, using the private sector, using our own outreach capabilities to ensure we have multilevel awareness programs going on; 

and these are in development, and we are welcoming suggestions 

from any of those out there, anybody who has got an interest in 

this area to ensure we are doing the right thing. 

As I mentioned in my statement, we are working with ISPs to 

ensure that we have got the right awareness going on for users of 

broadband connections to ensure that they understand the dangers 

of getting on line and in open systems without taking the appropriate precautions, so—. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. I will reserve my other questions for 

the next second round. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I think the Chair will use the clock not just 

as a guide for members, not as a hard and fast rule; and Ms. 

Lofgren and I have agreed that we will have as many rounds as 

members have questions, with Mr. Liscouski’s indulgence. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from Washington. 

Ms. DUNN. I thank the chairman. 

Mr. Liscouski, this committee has made it a priority to understand how communications and information are being shared 

across Federal agencies. How will the Cyber Division work within 

the larger Information Analysis Division responsible for analysis 

and warnings to the Homeland Security community and, if necessary in an extreme case, to the public? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Let me describe first our relationship with the 

Information Analysis Office. That is the IA component of IAIP. We 

are tightly knit together. The IAIP Directorate, combined of those 

two offices, was created with the intention of ensuring that we had 

overlap of our functions and our thinking within the structure to 

ensure that we always had a very close look at the intelligence 

components of the threats mapping vulnerabilities, whether they 

be physical vulnerabilities or logical or cyber vulnerabilities. 

And in this case, the NCSD plays sort of a unique role. While 

it is not an intelligence function, it is a capability-oriented, technical capability. And we lend ourselves to the IA function to understand how technical exploits can be used to conduct cyber terrorist 

attacks, while the IA function has clearly got the intelligence requirements to understand how terrorist groups may, or what their 

intentions may be to use technologies to conduct a cyber attack. 

They are a portal to the Intelligence Community. 

We drive our requirements through the information analysis 

component to ensure that they maintain that constant look and 

their constant contextual piece around what we are worried about 

from a vulnerability standpoint and what the Intelligence Community needs to be looking at from an intelligence standpoint. So we 

are tightly integrated. We drive requirements. We have—the IA 

analysts are frequently as knowledgeable about the technology, at 
18

least at a top level, as our folks are to understand what the 

vulnerabilities are. So when they see intelligence pieces they understand the relevance of intelligence to a particular infrastructure 

component. 

Ms. DUNN. Will you find yourself working with TTIC, with or 

through TTIC, during any of the process? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. We would be working with TTIC, 

and we do now quite actively through our IA counterparts; and my 

colleague, Bill Parrish, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis can go into that much more deeply. But I am very 

familiar with our relationships there. We use them quite robustly. 

But, again, we drive those through the IA component, ma’am. 

Ms. DUNN. Do you—in your Cyber Division, do you believe now 

you have adequate resources to conduct all your activities? Are 

there areas where you see specific needs our committee ought to be 

focusing on? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I think, for the present, we have the resources we 

need. As you know, we are staffing up. We currently have approximately 65 people in the division, and we are looking to staff up to 

somewhere, I would say about 100 or so for fiscal year 2004 is our 

plan. 

From my perspective, I think we are adequately staffed. I think 

we have got the resources we need, particularly with the partnership with the US–CERT. I think downstream, as we learn more 

about the vulnerabilities and particularly the initiatives we want 

to take and the resource areas in the short terms areas that we 

need to make improvements, we will probably be coming back to 

this committee and articulating what those needs are. 

Ms. DUNN. I am not seeing any timing clock. Do you have one, 

Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The green light is down in front of the witness. 

Ms. DUNN. Got it. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, we all fully appreciate 

cyberspace has no borders. How will you find yourself working with 

international organizations in your role? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. The international component is a very critical 

one for us. As you know, we have some informal arrangements. We 

are working closely with the British Government, with the Australians, the Germans, the Canadians. 

It is critical for us to expand our relationships for international 

cooperation. We are working with the Department of State to formalize those agreements. Bilateral and multilateral agreements 

are very key for us. 

The national strategy articulated the need for signing for the—

I am sorry—the European convention on cybersecurity. That is not 

the exact term, but we fully support that. 

We need to work with the international community to ensure 

that we have got uniform laws across international boundaries to 

enforce violations, to ensure that we have got good thinking about 

best practices. 

To your point, there are no boundaries. A vulnerability in Slovakia is as critical as a vulnerability in the United States. If a company is a Fortune 50 company operating around the world, we have 
19

to be very cognizant of those vulnerabilities. We are working hard 

with our partners to bring them up a level of capability, as well. 

Ms. DUNN. And does that include cooperative working when responding to something? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. The US–CERT is going to be nexus 

for that capability. We are going to be using the US–CERT as a 

model for CERTs around the world to—and this has clearly been 

the model. 

So to your point, yes. 

Ms. DUNN. What about—is your division considering and in cooperation with the private sector, considering setting up a code of 

standards, best practices, that would be in place both for the private sector, which you, in your testimony, mentioned had something over 80 percent of all of the cyber work that we need to be 

dealing with and also the public sector? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. And best practices occur at many 

different levels. 

We are trying to articulate identify and articulate best practices 

for home users, for small businesses, universities, big businesses. 

We have got to work in cooperation with the industry to ensure 

that best practices are effective, implementable, cost-effective, 

measurable, all the elements that you would want to have programs to identify what the right level of security is. 

This is a big area, a big body of work, and we are spending, we 

have been spending time, and we are spending much more a lot 

more time in the future on this. We are working with our councils. 

We have got the NIAC, the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, you are familiar with, I am sure; the NSTAC, the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Council. Both of those bodies 

have been involved in helping us identify standards. 

We are working with the private sector to determine what additional standards may be necessary. We are going to make these 

standards publicly available on our Web sites as we promulgate 

them. So this is all part of our outreach program. 

Ms. DUNN. And you can do that, you believe, without legislation? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. And I think at this point in time, we 

have got the industry with the support of the Congress, with the 

support of this administration, attuned to the need that security is 

more than just something which you can spend a dollar for and 

say, I have got adequate security. 

The biggest challenge in the business community is, again, ensuring you can identify what the appropriate level is and what the 

right level of investment for a dollar of security, does it get you 

anything in return. The cost and the return on investment is always a key component in the private sector. 

The business case here in terms of why businesses should be 

spending money on security in advance of legislation, I think, is 

one which is based upon competitive advantage. The more we can 

educate consumers, either at the basic consumer level, those who 

might shop at Amazon.com on line or those who implement multimillion dollar programs in their businesses, should know that they 

have choices about what the right choices are to make for security, 

for levels of security in the technology that they are buying; and 

the more we can make those—that awareness known to the con-
20

sumer groups, the more pressure they will put on the private sector 

to ensure that security is baked into their programs. 

Ms. DUNN. Good. Thank you very much. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from 

North Carolina. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. I think it is we all know how important it is. 

Mr. Liscouski, when we think in terms of cybersecurity, a lot of 

folks, when they first hear it, they think of it as how we protect 

computers. The truth is, as you know, it is much broader than that, 

because so much of our productivity and our economic fiber of this 

country is tied to the whole integration system that we have; and 

over the last 10, 20 years we have seen tremendous amounts. 

So let me get back to the risk assessment, and I am going to try 

not to cover something that hasn’t been covered, but maybe get a 

little better perspective on it. Because realizing that a department 

is just gearing up, and thinking about just the amount of problems 

we have had that was mentioned by our ranking member just this 

past August, the economic damage that was done to business and 

others by independent assessments, by some of the digital risk 

companies are saying it was about $32 to $33 billion. So obviously, 

this whole issue of cybersecurity is a huge issue. 

What progress has the Department of Homeland Security made 

in identifying cyber threats and vulnerabilities? And in conjunction 

with that, how have you been able to share this information with 

State and local organizations, which I think is critical? You know, 

just because they have the information doesn’t really do us a whole 

lot of good unless we can figure out how we can get it, to get some 

results in the assessment area. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. It is an excellent question because it is the heart 

of what a good protection program is all about: understanding the 

risks, the vulnerabilities to those risks, and the right practices in 

which you can engage to mitigate or reduce those risks or alleviate 

them. 

To that end, a major component of what we have done there are 

a number of them. We have got one effort as part of our responsibility for securing the Federal Government, which is initiated 

through the Fed CERT. That is the responsibility, to ensure that 

the proper warning alerts, incident notices, are going out across the 

Federal Government. 

That program has been in place for a while, originally established with GSA, now moved over to DHS, and is, at the heart, the 

NCSD. It is a very robust program. Part of that is also a patch remediation capability which goes back to the reduction of 

vulnerabilities and spreading that word. 

As it relates to the private sector and State and local governments, I think that is where much of our work is required to be 

done yet. We have got great relationships in the private sector in 

providing us information about vulnerabilities. Our relationships 

with Microsoft, with Cisco recently, have enabled us to be able to 

respond very quickly to vulnerability information and exploits and 

put notices out there to the general public and the State and local 
21

governments as well. They are all on the same alert system, so 

therefore they have the opportunity of receiving this information 

very quickly. 

It is our goal, with the establishment of the US–CERT and the 

leadership that we are establishing in the NCSD, to reduce these 

notification times from hours, currently, to, hopefully by the end of 

fiscal year 2004, an average of 30 minutes. We are looking to get 

robust communications capabilities out there beyond what we have 

now working, establishing networks with State and local governments. 

We have got some efforts under way right now, which I would 

like to keep at a top level, in terms of working very closely with 

State initiatives to develop communication networks, and then ultimately to establish State CERTs again, using the US–CERT as a 

model to reach down into the State governments to help them set 

up their own capabilities for incident response and incident warnings. 

So there are a number of initiatives we have got going in the 

pipeline. Again, we have only been working here for 3 months, so 

we are moving from the thinking and planning stages into the execution stages in the next quarter. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Let me follow that up, if I might, please, because 

I think you moved into the advisory and warning area, which I 

think is very critical as you deal with the assessed risk assessment. 

You have started a long—but as the Department looks at this 

whole area of integrating warnings about the possible problems of 

cybersecurity, and you have talked about what you are doing across 

the Federal Government to get it done on the security advisory system, talk to us a little bit more, if you will, please, about how are 

you reaching out to locals. You have talked about it in general 

terms. Because I think it is important, because most of the people 

who are going to be called upon to respond to such an attack are 

not traditional first responders, as we think, in terms of the agency 

reaching out to first responders—our fire, police or rescue; they are 

important because they have to receive it too—but you are also 

talking about a whole new group of first responders. 

How about talking about how those two are integrated, because 

I think it is critical to know, and what the Department is doing on 

it? Because if all you do is go to the end user, that will help, but 

you have really got to get upstream; and I hope that is what you 

are talking about. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. And if I understand your question correctly, this is again a multilevel approach. 

Mr. ETHRIDGE. Absolutely, because you have also got the private 

sector category there. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. That is correct. 

The first responder category in the cyber world is every user. I 

mean, it starts with prevention, as you well know, and ensuring we 

have got the right procedures in place to protect our systems; and 

that is just through basic security practices. 

Part of our outreach program is intended to continue to elevate 

the level of awareness and understanding and security posture 

within our—across the entire Nation by getting the average user 

or the business user to understand what they must do to protect 
22

themselves. In response mode, I think the Blaster and the SoBig 

virus are a example of how our response needs to be enhanced. I 

think we did a very admirable job responding and putting the 

advisories out, and we got a significant reach across our community 

to do that, both horizontally and vertically within the State and 

local government community, as well as in the private sector. 

But the home user was the one that I believe probably lacked the 

ability to understand what the implication of the—they clearly understood the implication, primarily because they couldn’t get on the 

Internet. It was—remediating from that problem was where we 

saw the biggest challenge to be. 

So we are looking at many creative ways to put out the word. We 

are working with the major media, establishing relationships with 

the major media to put the word out to make sure we have got a 

consistent message across there. Information sharing is the primary goal of DHS. 

It is often said, you know, it is not need to know, but it is need 

to share, and we are looking for as many ways as we can to put 

the information out there—on best practices, on vulnerabilities, on 

threats—that we possibly can, irrespective of whether they are in 

the physical world or the cyber world. We are not differentiating 

those things. 

The only thing I would add, and I can probably get into this a 

little bit later, is the speed at which the cyber world works. As you 

well know, it requires a little bit of a different sort of ops tempo, 

so to speak, or posture in ensuring that we have got a consistent, 

a thorough and a consistent look across all the infrastructure to ensure that we are aware of what is going on in the cyber world. 

I can address that later. 

Mr. ETHRIDGE. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but may 

I follow up with one final, since we are on this point, because I 

think it is so critical as we do this. 

I hope at some point we have in the system a measurement to 

know at least when we have we have had some measure of success. 

You know, it is one thing to do the assessment, another to notify. 

But unless we have a measurement down the road we talk about 

what business does in terms of measuring inputs and outputs. But 

we have to find a way to know, because this pressures us to speed 

up our process in the decision-making process to save those multitudes of billions of dollars down the road. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. You are absolutely right, sir. It is about metrics. 

It is about ensuring we can find those measurable programs and 

those factors within our programs to determine if, in fact, we are 

doing the right thing. That is precisely the business approach that 

we are taking. 

Again, going back to the leadership—and the comments earlier, 

ma’am, about, you know, why it took so long to find our director—

the only response on that is, we wanted to make sure—we are only 

going to get a chance of doing this right once, and finding the person with the right capabilities and qualifications that can understand working in an entrepreneurial environment. 

How do you build an organization and who do you be able to 

quickly execute against the requirements you have and this type 

of highly threatened environment to make those —to measure 
23

those successes is the type of person we were looking for and is 

precisely the reason we were looking for them. It is all about 

metrics. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Georgia. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I only have a couple of 

questions on this idea of sharing intelligence and information. 

I think we are beyond the stage where our intelligence agencies 

are not sharing with each other. Is that fair to say? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, if I heard you say, we are beyond the point 

where we are not sharing. 

Mr. LINDER. Yeah. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Implying we really are sharing the information. 

Yes, sir, you are correct. 

Mr. LINDER. How good are we at analyzing what we are getting? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. At what level, at the physical level or the traditional threat level or at the cyber level, sir? 

Mr. LINDER. The threat level. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. At the traditional threats level, I think we are 

very good at analyzing it. 

This is an extremely difficult problem, and I can speak to it 

some, but I really defer to my colleague, Bill Parrish, the Assistant 

Secretary for Information Analysis, in his domain. But I have operated in this space for quite a long time, and our capabilities for 

analyzing information have only increased over the years. I mean, 

we have gotten very good as a whole, as the Intelligence Community, to analyze information. 

It is an extremely complex problem because you never have the 

perfect information. You can never do the perfect analysis. You can 

only do it in hindsight and retrospect. It is an extremely difficult 

problem to solve. But I think the capability is the people we have 

attracted into the Intelligence Community, particularly in DHS, 

are really some of the finest minds out there to be able to understand these complex problems. 

Mr. LINDER. And lastly, how cautious or how careful are you in 

sharing this with first responders? There was a time when they 

were being overburdened with unanalyzed intelligence right after 

September 11 to the point they just set it all aside, and it had no 

value whatsoever. I think you have to be careful what you give to 

them, that it has to have some specificity, some analysis, and that 

it is right down their alley. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. In fact, our focus is not on first responders, and I don’t mean this in any other way than calling them first 

preventors. 

When we are sharing intelligence information, it is really intended to prevent the act from occurring, and we will err on the 

side of sharing probably too much sometimes. Of course, not in the 

sense of sharing classified information inappropriately. But working with TTIC, IA, the FBI, we have been very aggressive in assuring we can quickly declassify information to share out to the field, 

to our consumer base, as quickly and as effectively as we can. 

That is a challenge we are always going face. Sources and methods, as you well know, are one of those things—that is something 
24

that has to be guarded very carefully. But I believe—and I have 

seen it in practice—that we will err on the side of maybe sharing 

too much information sometimes, because the frustration you can 

create by sharing general information without specifics, and particularly with specific activities to follow, sometimes can create a 

frustration. But, nonetheless, I think as we all mature in this process, particularly as our end users understand the context during 

this threat environment, they themselves will raise up their capabilities as well. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank the gentleman. 

Gentlelady from the Virgin Islands. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to welcome the Assistant Secretary and thank the chairman and ranking member for holding this hearing, given the recent 

attacks, like the Blaster worm, and the concerns that even a worse 

attack could occur within several hours or days and the fact that 

so much of our physical infrastructure is dependent—is so cyber 

dependent. 

It is an important hearing, and I want to applaud you, Mr. Assistant Secretary, for your focus on ensuring that cybersecurity and 

physical infrastructure security are linked in your operation, as it 

is important as they are linked in reality. 

I have a couple of questions. One of the—we have been concerned 

about the slowness of the Department in getting started and being 

able to plan and address many issues; and one of the obstacles to 

that has been the fact that we were bringing together 22 agencies 

and trying to blend them into a smooth operational unit. The 

NCSD brings together about five different parts of five different 

agencies—FBI, Commerce, Defense—as well as a center. Are you 

pretty comfortable that some of the obstacles of bringing different 

agencies with different cultures together has been addressed and 

that you are able to move forward smoothly now? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. I will tell you why that is a great 

question. 

I am satisfied because—I mean, that has been tremendously 

challenging. I mean, bringing these organizations together under 

one roof has been something that I don’t think any person who 

even architected this in the planning stages understood the complexity of it. 

I can speak for my own area within IAIP. As you pointed out, 

we brought five different organizations into the NCSD and IAIP. 

I just remind everyone respectfully that we have been in business 

for 6 months, and the challenge we face in trying to overcome some 

of those organizations has been pretty daunting; I’ve got to be honest with you. I mean, when I came in from the private sector to 

do this, it set me back a little bit when I thought about, How are 

we going to do this and how are we going to do this in the context 

that we have a real threat we are facing every single day? 

If you recall, when we did this, we were at war; and we had to 

organize ourselves around work to respond to very real threats in 

addition to bringing people on, creating organization. It was pretty 

challenging. 
25

The leadership at DHS, the senior leadership of DHS, provided 

the right latitude in order to make mistakes. And that is what we 

are going to be doing. I mean, clearly, as we start out with this organization what it looks like today, in 2003, will probably be a lot 

different in 2005, 2010. And hopefully if we are succeeding we are 

going to continue the path of evolution that will eventually evolve 

DHS into the robust organization it really does need to be. 

But we are on that path. It is a long road, but it has been good. 

I mean, I can tell you in my private-sector experience the thing 

that has been kind of very helpful to me is knowing that we are 

going to make mistakes. But we don’t have the luxury of not making them. In fact, when we tell people when they come on board—

and I have said this before, I think, before the committee—that we 

have got sort of one thinking. It is a think big, act small scale, fast. 

We know we are going to make mistakes. We know we have to 

learn and we are going to evolve. It has been gratifying when you 

look at it; and we were, on the way over here, reminding ourselves 

it has only been 3 months for the division and it is been 6 months 

for the DHS. In dog years it seems like it has been a lifetime. 

I can tell you that right now, it has been pretty challenging, but 

we are making some very tremendous progress. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. The other concern that I have is, the officials 

who have left the positions over the few months; and is, related to 

this, the difficulty in bringing the Department together? Have you 

identified what the fault is, what were the problems that would 

cause these officials to leave? 

As you were looking for a Director of the NCSD several candidates had indicated they weren’t interested because it was too far 

down the chain; they didn’t have a direct link to the Secretary. 

Have you identified what it is that needed to be fixed? Because 

the continuity of leadership is critical. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yeah. I would suggest that I am not so sure it 

needed to be fixed as much as we just had to find the right person 

that understood this is about execution. 

The challenge we had was taking a strategy, a highly articulate 

and well-developed National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, and 

then putting implementation plans for that strategy for execution. 

Two different types of people are required for that job. And it is 

really difficult to be a strategist at one level and an implementer 

at another level; and we needed an implementer, and we needed 

a start-up person that could take something where, to be quite candid with you, is now somewhat of a chaotic environment, when you 

start things up and just make some very short-term, measurable 

progress. And that is the type of person we were looking for. 

So I don’t think there was a problem as much as there was finding the right talent to fit that. And it is a challenge, and it is a 

very risky challenge, because, you know, Mr. Yoran is coming in to 

us with very definable goals. We have got high expectations. It is 

very visible. And the risk to him—is you know, at a personal level 

in terms of potentially not succeeding, as well as to the Department is great. 

So it is—when you are out there publicly like that, not many people really want to take that challenge on. 
26

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Okay. One last question in this round. Reading some of the articles in our background material—and it is also 

my feeling that the Federal Government should lead by example in 

cybersecurity—where are we in identifying the risks and 

vulnerabilities of the government’s cyber assets? Are we leading by 

example? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Leading by example; I think we are probably on 

a path to leading by example. I suspect there is always a lot of 

room for improvement. We do have efforts underway to do that. I 

think FISMA—the law has provided us tremendous guidance and 

leadership or a framework from which we can operate to ensure we 

are doing the rights things. So from that perspective I think, frankly, FISMA is a wonderful example to look at as a guide across the 

board. So I suggest the government is leading by example on that, 

in that realm. 

In our purchasing requirements, our ability to justify our programs based upon good security practice, are things that I think 

are very rational approaches to take as it relates to cybersecurity. 

So I would argue, yes, I would think that the government is leading by example. 

We can be doing better. Cataloging our infrastructures, understanding the interdependencies, those are things we are trying to 

do across the board, and we have got programs in place to do that. 

I think we will be getting better as we move along. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentlelady. 

The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Lucas. 

Mr. LUCAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, in June you had detailed the plans for Consolidated Cybersecurity Tracking Analysis and Response Center that 

would detect and respond to Internet incidents, track potential 

threats and vulnerabilities, and coordinate cybersecurity and incident response for the Federal, State, local governments, private 

sector, and international partners. 

What has been the status of the center? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Sir, the CSTARC, the Cybersecurity Tracking 

Analysis Center, has evolved into the US–CERT. That was a preliminary step for us to be able to organize ourselves around this 

effort, consolidate the watch centers and the efforts we had within 

the other organizations that came to us when DHS was created—

those organizations being the NIPC, the CIAO, elements of the 

NCS, the FedCIRC—into one organization. And that CSTARC represented the first iteration of what we knew was going to become 

the US–CERT. With the CSTARC we were able to very capably 

manage a number of significant incidents, the SoBig, the Blaster 

virus, the Cisco vulnerability. And then that, as I indicated, provided the framework for us to be able to build on that to create the 

CERT, the US–CERT. 

Mr. LUCAS. This is a hypothetical. In the event that we had a 

terrorist incident today, a cyberterrorist event, could you just explain to me what process we would use today to notify all these different interested agencies? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. In the hypothetical example, suppose we 

were notified in the private sector that they first identified a par-
27

ticular exploit, and that exploit resulted in our analysis to determine that that might be something that would be used or may be 

the focus of a terrorist attack. The combination of resources we 

have across the Federal Government currently, if it comes to DHS 

first, our analysis capabilities, leveraging on the US–CERT to understand those exploits is our first stopping point. The US–CERT 

then quickly engages with other components of the Federal Government, the JTF, CNO, for cooperation and additional analysis. We 

would reach out to the private sector to do additional analysis. And 

as quickly as we get our analysis completed to determine what the 

vulnerability or the threat might be, then DHS has got the advisory capability of putting warnings out very quickly to the entire 

community vis-a-vis its alert system as well as the ISACs to ensure 

that we have got thorough coverage. 

And, again, it is a work in progress. I am not suggesting it works 

the way it should work all the time or it is as thorough as it should 

be. Over time, our goal is to ensure that we increase that coverage. 

Mr. LUCAS. I understand you said you were staffing up. You have 

about 65 now, and you are hoping to have 100-plus. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LUCAS. So, do I take it from that that you feel that you have 

the financial resources you need to carry out your mission? Or, if 

you had additional financial resources, how would you utilize 

them? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. You could always use money, but I am not so 

sure if adding more money at any point in time is necessarily the 

quickest solution. The biggest thing you have got to do is build the 

right framework in the right organization in which to put people 

in in the partnerships. 

I think we are adequately funded right now. I think we have got 

the right path to go on. We can come back and address that downstream in fiscal year 2005. 

Mr. LUCAS. Those are my questions. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman. The Chair recognizes 

the Vice Chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Sessions. 

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chairman and appreciate him holding 

this hearing today, along with the Ranking Member. 

Mr. Liscouski, welcome. We are delighted to have you here today. 

And I would say to you, and I think you have heard this from 

members, we appreciate your private sector experience and the 

things which you learned there and the focus that that brings to 

you and the DHS; I think that the Federal Government will be better off because of those lessons that you have learned. 

I would like to focus my questions today; I just heard you use 

the word ‘‘framework.’’ Some people could also say the word ‘‘business plan’’ might fit in the middle of that, framework business 

plan. 

On page 2 of your testimony, there are six different pieces that 

are called status of integrating organizations and functions below 

into DHS. And it talks about the elements of the National Infrastructure protection center—formerly housed in the Federal Bureau of Investigation—DOD, FEMA, Department of Commerce, Energy, and General Services, GSA, into functions that you are evidently going to be responsible for. 
28

I am interested in your discussion with us about the word 

‘‘framework,’’ about how you are going to bring these functions in 

to make sure—I guess the best word is to say, ‘‘to measure twice 

and saw once’’ for the efficiency and the effectiveness so that we 

are not recreating something 7 or 8 or 10 months down the line because of your need just to rush into service. 

Would you mind discussing those things, those activities of those 

six different pieces. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Sure. And this is broader than cyber, sir. This 

really relates to the entire Infrastructure Protection Office. And I 

would be happy to address that because I think I have got to talk 

about that, and then the framework for the other divisions fall out 

of that. 

Generally speaking—and I will go back to the very beginning 

when I came to DHS back in March—as I indicated, it was obviously brand new. We had been involved— when I got there it was 

about 3 weeks old. So—and we were in the middle of a war and 

we were staffing up to respond to the threats we had. 

It was immediately apparent that the work that we were engaged in could not change substantively, because the same elements that came to us from the Energy assurance office, from the 

NIPC, from the CIAO, from the NCS, those elements were the very 

elements that were responding to the threats of the present day. 

So we had to be very careful as we were building this framework 

and identifying what our bigger mission requirements were that we 

didn’t break anything. So that was job one, and make sure that we 

responded to those threats. 

So in our current-day thinking, what we did was basically establish a capability that would operate at one level, which was just 

putting one foot in front of the other to make sure we were not 

stepping on a land mine, so to speak, and we were executing 

against the goals that we had against that particular threat. 

Now, by the same token, we had to also think in a bigger picture 

to understand what did the organization need to look like over the 

6, 12, or 18 months? So we began to develop an organization based 

upon the work that we were in. And that was the first question: 

What business were we in? You know, were we out there doing vulnerability assessments; were we just out there thinking great 

thoughts about protection strategies we should be doing? How do 

we create a capability that could address critical infrastructure 

vulnerabilities across 13 critical infrastructures, 5 key assets, the 

cyber environment, in a way that we could put coherence around 

this? 

So we were able to organize ourselves at the first level to understand what the organization needed to look like. It started off with 

a very basic line of block chart with two organizations in it. We 

added a third. We kind of mixed it up. I mean, we really learned 

as we were going. 

To your point, we wanted to ensure that we acted quickly to 

identify the immediate needs but as we built an organization for 

the longer term. We are exactly in that process right now. I now 

have four divisions in my organization, because we have identified 

the need to build it out but yet stay integrated; not specialize too 
29

much, but orient ourselves according to sort of our business approach. 

And I can get into some more detail if you would like. But effectively what we started doing was a supply chain analysis. We 

looked at our client base and we looked at the private sector, the 

Federal sector, State and local governments, the territories. We 

looked at all those client bases and determined what was it we 

were delivering, what was it they needed, and how do we deliver 

it and what were the inputs into that delivery system, into the production system. And that is precisely what we are doing. 

So we are still going through that process. I suggest it is going 

to take a few more months before we really figure out the exact 

processes we need in terms of an organization. And then, as I said 

earlier, this organization is probably going to evolve as we learn 

more about our businesses as we go along. It will be a continuous 

work in process, I can promise you that. 

Mr. SESSIONS. You know, I think some of my comments—and I 

don’t presume to know the things which are important necessarily 

to each one of these elements, not being aware of all the databases; 

but it is my hope that you would be able to develop in some efficient factor a database with firewalls with the elements that you 

need to avoid six database administrators, six of everything to accomplish these things. 

And that kind of goes back to the framework that the house—

the sandbox you are going to build. And it is my hope that really 

your private sector vision would allow you and the assistant secretary that luxury to please make sure when you build that, whatever it is, that you do it within that framework. And I guess my 

last comment is very plain. And that is, we heard testimony last 

week where the people who were in charge didn’t communicate 

what they were in charge of, didn’t tell anybody what they needed 

to be doing, and there was a failure from top to bottom, commandand-control structure. And it is my hope that you really do follow 

up with those things of integrating yourself with business leaders 

and commercial leaders in this country to make sure they know not 

only what you stand for but the lessons learned; because I think 

that the key to this is avoiding or being prepared to avoid a strike 

that would cripple this great Nation. 

Thank you for your service. And we appreciate your being here 

today. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The gentlelady from Texas. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank the Chairman and Ranking Member 

again for holding a very vital and important hearing. And Mr. 

Liscouski, thank you for your willingness to accept what I think is 

a larger-than-life challenge. It is something that I hear when we 

travel. We had some hearings, field hearings in Los Angeles and 

Long Beach, looking at the ports; and cybersecurity technology permeates every aspect of the needs of homeland security. And I am 

hoping that you are getting that sense by the position. And I am 

going to take a line of very rapid-fire questions and a series of 

them, and then if you could try to respond. 

One of the questions already asked about being able to coordinate, if there was a cybersecurity or cyber attack, coordinate with 
30

respect to our own Federal agencies. My pointed question is: Do 

you feel confident that you have the authority, in essence the 

power, to be able to command forces that deal with cyber issues in 

a time of a cyber attack? And I really want you to be pointed on 

the question of authority, because that is our responsibility. How 

can we assist you to do that? Because it certainly is telling that we 

have had a trail of back—the back of people’s backs—and that is 

departures—respecting their reasons for doing so, but that is what 

has occurred. So it is a great concern to me that you be vested with 

the authority to do the job. 

One of the things that the Federal Government has as its assets—it has many assets, but it has several that relate to homeland 

security and terrorist attacks. Certainly it is a role model in action. 

So goes the Federal Government, so goes the rest of the community 

in terms of looking to how we respond. 

They watched us on 9/11, and I think we are quite grateful that 

we were able to muster our senses about us and maintain the continuity of government. The Pentagon was excellent in the face of 

tragedy, and we all tried to support them and go forward. But that 

was looked upon. 

We also have the bully pulpit as to how we can encourage communities to pull up their boot straps and get going on some important issues. So I want to know specifically about the authority. 

Let me also say that—have we made and do you have under your 

belt the enunciated vulnerabilities of the Federal Government; specifically know where the cracks in our armor is? We wanted to 

come and either have you delineate those—and you might give 

them to me generally—but if we wanted to have a closed-door session where you said, really pointed out some of the large gaping 

holes, could you today, September the 16, 2003, list those for us? 

Very vital. Because as I said, if the government collapsed in the 

midst of a tragedy, we are certainly sending a bad signal out to 

those who are struggling to overcome whatever the problem is. 

Rapid fire, I continue. Have you found any connection to cyber 

problems with respect to the massive blackout? Are you engaged in 

a collaborative effort in that investigation? 

What would be your response to the fact that we are raising 

brighter and more inquisitive teenagers? I cite the 17-year-old in 

the western State who was part of the virus epidemic. Of course, 

everybody is talking about what a great young man he is; he didn’t 

mean it. But they are everywhere. 

How are we dealing with the potential of this bright emerging 

army of detractors? And do we do an outreach campaign? 

Do we work with schools? How can Homeland Security be of help 

to you on that? Do we have a doctor in the House? Are we able to 

have our researchers and doctors look at—and when I say ‘‘doctors,’’ I put quotes around it—look at the next virus on the scene? 

Why are we only reacting? Our Nation is going to look to us to be 

preventative medicine, so why are we in the same boat as my 

BlackBerry ran away with itself a couple of weeks ago with it is 

coming, it is coming, it is coming? No solution, but it is coming. I 

think we need to be in the business of preventative medicine. Who 

are we retaining? What kind of resources do you need to be able 

to be the predictor of what is to come? 
31

And, finally, we did something in a bipartisan manner last week 

that I am very proud of, and that is the Fair Credit Act, I believe. 

But a big piece of that was the protection against identity theft. 

But we can’t do it alone with an authorization bill under financial 

services. 

I believe that identity threat is a threat to the homeland security 

because why? Terrorists can steal your identity and walk around 

and be as unpredictable as possible. What are we doing with respect to identity theft which comes a lot through the computer? 

And I thank you for responding to these rapid-fire questions. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you, ma’am. If I took them down right, I 

will be able to respond to them intelligently, hopefully. First, I 

have to be able to read my own handwriting. 

With respect to coordination, and specifically with respect to the 

question of authority, I want to clarify one point. DHS has got authority, protection authority. By statute, the Homeland Security 

Act has set DHS up to be the promulgator of protection strategies. 

From an investigative standpoint, we partner up with the FBI, 

with the Secret Service, which is clearly part of DHS. But the FBI 

has got the lead in many of these cases to— and this is where we 

probably need to get in a little bit of a closed-door session, I think. 

But at the top level, the authorities that we have, clearly I would 

say we have adequate authorities to ensure that we have protection 

on our cyberspace. And I say that in a thinking mode primarily because we are just in the execution phase of our strategy. And I 

think time will tell whether we have the appropriate—whether we 

are impeded from executing fully the strategy that we need, as has 

been articulated in the strategy and as we have identified it. But 

I would say right now, yes, DHS has been provided the full authority that we need, there are some excellent programs we have in 

place and that we have in plan, that are not appropriate for this 

session, that I think really can articulate what those authorities 

are and how we are meeting those things. 

As it relates to responding to an attack and what that might 

imply for other activities the U.S. Government would be engaged 

in to prevent or actually to intercede or interdict a cyber attack, 

those are resources which are not just owned by DHS but other 

components of the Federal Government. So again, that might be a 

more appropriate discussion for a closed session, if you can indulge 

me on that. 

On the second point: Have we made a full analysis of our 

vulnerabilities? Again, I can tell you it is a work in progress. I 

don’t think we will ever know. I mean, the context of a full analysis 

of our vulnerabilities implies that we can get our arms around 

these things. And in the dynamic and ever-changing environment 

in the technology world, new vulnerabilities are always going to be 

coming out. And the challenge we have is not just articulating or 

clearly identifying and articulating those vulnerabilities in a steady 

state. But there is no such thing as a steady state in the technology 

world you identify with the vulnerability of a nuclear power plant, 

because typically that technology doesn’t change. The threats to the 

nuclear power plant are not necessarily static, but there are only 

so many ways you can attack it. In the cyber world, it is very dynamic. So that will be a continuous work in progress. 
32

We have our hands on what I think is a good fund of information 

that articulates what our vulnerabilities are in the government, 

and clearly we are working hard on that. Again, that might be 

more appropriate discussion for a closed session. 

With respect to the blackout, again I have to apologize. In fact, 

I guess I will be coming back tomorrow at a different committee 

hearing to discuss the blackout. I am not at liberty to say what we 

have found in terms of root cause and what the respective relationships are in the cyber components. That report will be coming out. 

I believe there will be an interim report here in October, and that 

will be published by DOE and the task force. I will have to indulge 

you on that question as well. 

An interesting point you brought up about the teenagers and 

those who are propagating viruses and the relative ease they have 

with which they can do that is a serious concern. You have got a 

number of different types of viruses that can be created out there. 

One is just basic tool sets that people pick up off the Internet. They 

get bored with—they decide they want to cobble them together, and 

they create a virus, and that can happen fairly quickly. There is 

a different one, a different set, different mind-set of people who decide they want to do this, and then just quietly make them available to those in the quote -unquote teenage realm here that you described, that they are not even smart enough to maybe make their 

own viruses; they might evolve them a little bit, but they are not 

the original architects, and then all of a sudden these viruses find 

their way into the public domain. I think our authorities, I think 

the law enforcement community needs to aggressively pursue these 

people. 

I think this is similar to a discussion I had with some advocates 

in the private sector who operate in the security space, that they 

really want to see the government, the law enforcement community, go after folks who provide the basic tool sets, the basic knowhow to anybody on how to propagate a virus. This is similar to becoming a conspirator in a crime. 

Somebody mentioned an excellent example. If you are the driver 

of a getaway car in a bank robbery and a passenger, your codefendant, decides to shoot somebody and kills them, you are equally as 

guilty as the shooter, just being the driver. We should probably 

take the same attitude toward people who propagate viruses. This 

is serious. And when you talk about billions of dollars’ worth of 

damage and losses to the private sector and the government, these 

are no light matters. We need to take this seriously. 

The doctor in the house, the capability that we have in the research community of developing the right talent, I think DHS 

partnered up with others in the community, DOD in particular, 

creating centers of excellence, providing scholarship programs for 

cyber—you know, in the information security world. It is a tremendous step forward. Do we need more people? We absolutely need 

more people. And I think we are making the right steps to address 

those needs. 

And your final question: The Fair Credit Act and what are we 

doing to protect against that? Again, I think there are good efforts 

going on in that space. I think the FTC, and I know Orson Swindle 

in particular, has been very aggressive in putting the word out 
33

about what consumers need to do to protect themselves. The Secret 

Service operates in the identity theft space. 

I agree with you, it is a very, very important issue. It gets back 

to the issue about privacy and how you protect privacy, and that 

is a central component of information security. You cannot have 

privacy without good information security. 

So,I appreciate your questions. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The gentleman from Rhode Island. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join 

with my colleagues in thanking the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member for organizing this hearing. And, Mr. Secretary, thank you 

for being here as well. 

If I could, you had said that home and broadband users are one 

of the groups you would like to focus on outreach and education. 

And certainly, without a doubt, they are one of the greatest neglected weaknesses in our national plan to secure cyberspace. Can 

you give us a better sense of how DHS is planning to address this? 

And would it be appropriate to work with, for example, the Federal 

Trade Commission, which, as you may know, is also mounting its 

own ‘‘stay safe on-line campaign’’? And do you feel that a largescale public awareness campaign needs to be launched? And, in 

particular, and following up with one of the points my colleague 

from Texas made in terms of reaching out to young people, and 

maybe through demonstration programs, how we can involve young 

people in these awareness campaigns and kind of harness their energy and natural ability to work with computers? I think that 

would be a good place to start. 

And one other point I would like to address, and this may have 

to be addressed in closed session, but I think it is an important 

point of focus. And that is in your vulnerability assessment on our 

national assets and other areas. We have seen a trend in recent 

years worldwide among terrorist attacks, that terrorists focus on 

high-casualty, high-shock value events. And I am curious and I 

think we all need to be attentive to what those areas are in the 

world of cybersecurity that fall into that realm. There may be only 

a few areas that would compare to the use of a WMD in the cyber 

world, but those are the things that I think we need to have high 

priority and focus on. 

And I would like to at some point, even if we can’t do it here in 

open session, to follow up on that. And I think that would be important. Thank you. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. I am just trying to read my own 

handwriting—your first question. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. It was on your comment earlier that home and 

broadband users—. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Do we need a large-scale—exactly. With respect 

to the broadband, one of the things we are working with the National Cybersecurity Alliance. Among those representatives on the 

Alliance are ISPs, AOL, and others. And they are taking an individual responsibility to educate home users to the challenges and 

security challenges they face in broadband connections. I would 

like to see that expanded. I think there is no question that the 

broadband community, you know, the commercial space there 

needs to be really—from my point of view, I need to use the bully 
34

pulpit to get them to understand their responsibility that, as they 

sell broadband connections, they have got to provide better awareness notices to their users about the potential damage that can be 

done. 

Because it doesn’t just affect the individual. As you are well 

aware, the individual user—these viruses propagate very quickly, 

and consequently can spread across—using zombies or using personal computers that are accessible via broadband connections and 

then propagate these attacks. So there is a real, I would suggest 

almost fiduciary responsibility on their behalf. But that might be 

a little bit too aggressive. But at the end of the day, we need to 

put that awareness and that responsibility with the ISPs and the 

broadband connections, cable companies, et cetera. So I do certainly 

agree with that. 

The educational efforts, the outreach efforts, from our point of 

view are geared toward educating the consumer. Your point about 

young people and education, I liken that to, you know, the DARE 

program, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that has 

been around for—must be 20 years now. 

Educating kids—and this is clearly a different perspective. We 

are moving from self-esteem to responsibility and how do you act. 

But I agree. I mean, it scares me to death to know that young kids 

are on these Internet connections not knowing about the dangers 

that they face through going to chat rooms and the vulnerabilities 

that they have there. I mean, just the vulnerabilities of kids being 

on the Internet is something that scares me. And that is something 

that we can address through good education programs in the 

schools. 

DHS is going to be working hard to figure out how we do that 

and reaching out to the schools to provide good awareness and good 

education programs. Fortunately, the NIPC did this previously. We 

have inherited those programs so we have got a basis for doing 

that, and I think they have been successful. They have got poster 

programs. But we need to expand that. It is a high priority for me 

personally. 

The vulnerability assessments, the trend in recent years that you 

have articulated. Clearly, you know, I can get into depth in this in 

a closed session, but at a top level we do worry about the combination of a physical and cyber attack. You know, a cyber attack preceding a physical attack, taking out a 9/11 system and then combining that with a physical attack. You know, it is a scare. Is it 

doable? I would say at this point anything is doable. And it is 

something we worry about a lot. And we are working down—I can 

tell you one thing we are working very aggressively on is—and the 

categories of all the critical infrastructure we really worry about—

we look at what the nexus would be with a cyber attack to see how 

that might be enhanced or what that sequence might look like. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Liscouski, I would like to—first let me ask this. Before you 

took office, the administration put forward this document, which is 

the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, dated February 2003. 

So far, have you discovered a major gap or something that—where 

you think the emphasis was not placed, the proper emphasis was 
35

not placed in this document? Or is this something that you can still 

go by today? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. No, sir. It is still a very valid document. A lot of 

good thinking went into that, and I think the private sector’s input 

into that became particularly valuable to me as we thought about 

how we needed to create our national cybersecurity division. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Well, I would like to just briefly—and this will 

entail a little bit of repetition from what you have already talked 

about—but I would like to go through those five priorities and ask 

you to kind of give us a snapshot of where we are with each of 

them. 

For example, the first priority listed in that document was a National Cyberspace Security Response System. And they talked 

about a public/private architecture where you would analyze attacks and warn and manage incidents and then respond. It sounds 

to me like that is essentially what US–CERT is going to be doing. 

Is that the primary way that we are going to implement that priority? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. It is the foundation for it. The US–CERT 

is clearly the linchpin for that effort. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. And then what more needs to be done? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, we need to—clearly, building relationships 

at the private sector. I think the US–CERT is an excellent start at 

that foundation. And we have engaged in discussions with the private sector, the Nortons and the McAfees of the world, to determine how we can integrate their contributions to this effort. I think 

there is a lot of good work that can be done there. 

The private sector is doing a tremendous amount of good information collection and analysis on viruses and vulnerabilities that 

we would like to be able to integrate more robustly. And then extending the information out—as we spoke earlier, the National Response System is not just national but it is international as well. 

So we have a lot of work to do there as well, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The second priority is a National Cyberspace 

Security Threat and Vulnerability reduction program, where the 

National Strategy talks about reducing the threat, identifying 

vulnerabilities, and then trying to develop systems with fewer 

vulnerabilities. Give me a snapshot of our efforts to implement priority No. 2. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Again, and you know, the dominant theme here 

is private sector. And we have to again work with the major manufacturers and the smaller manufacturers of both hardware and 

software technologies to ensure that when they produce technology, 

it is according to guidelines and expectations that they have fewer 

and fewer security vulnerabilities. And if we can—and to be candid 

with you, companies are stepping up to that challenge. You know, 

pointing out to Microsoft and the things that they have done, they 

have taken this responsibility. I know they have been subject to a 

lot of criticism, but at the end of the day they are—their chief security officer is responsible for overseeing many of the programs that 

they have. They have taken very good steps here. 

It is a good example of what we need to be doing with the private 

sector. Those who produce it have to understand that they have the 

responsibility of producing good technology the first time around. 
36

Security defaults should not be off. I mean, this is the classic thinking of just basic things that need to be done. They are making good 

inroads there. 

The other point is to continually look at the infrastructures, you 

know,the vulnerabilities that we create by implementing technologies. I mean, this is a bigger discussion, to be quite candid with 

you, but we are doing a lot of analysis as converging technologies 

come in. I mean, we look at the convergence between the IP world 

and the telecom world and the vulnerabilities that are inherent 

there, because of—and forgive me for going too deep into this. But 

just as an interesting example, one of the advances of technologies, 

because they become more efficient, they themselves bring about 

vulnerabilities because now one device can do the work of 10. 

Where you had redundancy before, now you are down to a critical 

path of one device as being a key vulnerability. So we are constantly looking at those things as well. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Talking about the private sector, at this point, 

do you have an opinion about whether market forces are going to 

be enough to elicit the kind of response from hardware and software vendors that the country must have? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I am optimistic that the market forces will be 

sufficient. But I am prepared to say that if they are not, we need 

to quickly adapt our thinking. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. And as part of that reduction of vulnerability, 

is the Department looking at physical infrastructure related to 

cybersecurity as part of our vulnerabilities and part of what we 

need to assess? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. And, unfortunately, this has been going 

on prior to even the establishment or the articulation of a national 

strategy. The NCS, the National Communication System, which 

was previously a DOD component, did a significant amount of work 

on vulnerability analysis of the telecom industry and then the IP 

backbones. So we have got a significant amount of data here that 

already allows us to be able to identify these vulnerabilities, and 

we are continuing to expand that. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. It seems to me greater work is going to be 

needed in that area, and we can discuss that at another time. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Let me briefly go through. The third priority 

was a Cybersecurity Awareness and Training Program; a number 

of questions have dealt with that so far. Is that going to be the 

focus of your summit in the fall? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. That is a key component of it—for us, understanding how we can better reach the community. And our summit 

is going to include not just those in the technology industry, but 

across industries, so we have a broad approach to understanding 

the problems. So, yes, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The fourth priority was securing government’s 

own cyberspace. You have been asked about that before. But I am 

unclear, frankly, as to how much authority or influence you have 

in bringing the rest of the Federal Government along. My understanding is that that has been primarily OMB’s responsibility. And 

just about every witness we have had before this subcommittee 

says that the government is nowhere near where they should be, 
37

and that if the government would lead, it is such a big consumer 

and has such market power, that it brings the rest of the country 

along with it. But what is your role exactly in bringing the rest of 

the government along? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Our role is really to support the OMB. OMB does 

have the initial lead to ensure that, through FISMA and through 

the regulations that they provide and the oversight, that the government is responding to their responsibilities to provide security. 

DHS’s role in this is really to coordinate the incident response and 

warning through the FedCIRC through the Federal Government, 

and I think that could be expanded to understanding more about 

the vulnerabilities. 

As I indicated earlier, we do have the patch for remediation responsibility through the PATC to ensure that the right tools are 

available to the government. So we have a responsibility there, sir. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. The final priority was national security and 

international security cooperation. I don’t know—you have alluded 

to those things briefly before in your testimony. I suppose that is 

an area where there are an ongoing efforts and will have to continue to be ongoing. Let me ask you to do this. Rate where you believe international cooperation is on cybersecurity at this point. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I had said in the beginning stages, it is tough to 

put a numerical code on it. I would say we are really in the beginning stages of understanding—well, we clearly know what we need 

to do, but we are just in the very beginning stages of really making 

some progress and establishing the relationships that are so necessary for us. There is a lot of opportunity there for us. It is a big 

world. I mean, there is a lot. And as you pointed out earlier, this 

technology is ubiquitous. It is not necessarily discriminating by economic income in terms of gross national product. I mean, you can 

get cheap technology out there and create these vulnerabilities. So 

we have a lot of work ahead of us to do, and I think we are positioned to do it. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. 

The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Florida, 

Mr. Meek. 

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, 

for being here. 

Speaking of the private sector, and I guess when we speak of the 

private sector we are just not talking about domestic private sector, 

because the cybersecurity is a huge issue. Recently, as you know, 

with the New York blackout you had thousands of New Yorkers in 

subways and you had folks in Detroit and auto plants that were 

shut down, and it halted after-hours trading as it relates to Wall 

Street. A lot of things took place. What exercise did the Department go through to find out was it or was it not a cyber attack? 

That is one. 

Two, what happened in the private sector as it relates to that, 

especially in our energy industry and those that handle their cyber 

needs? What took place as it relates to checking, making sure that 

we weren’t under a cyber terrorist attack? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Okay. If you can indulge me, I have to speak in 

general terms. 

Mr. MEEK. Sure. 
38

Mr. LISCOUSKI. We are in the process of investigating that component. I chair the Security Working Group for the Electricity Task 

Force. So, in that capacity, I have got to be careful what I can say 

and what I can’t say. We are going to have a hearing tomorrow on 

this and we are going to be publishing reports downstream, so I 

want to be a little bit circumspect. But what I can do is discuss 

what we did as DHS during the blackout, and I might add some 

clarity about how this process works a little bit, because I think it 

is clearly relevant and it is not going to be disclosing anything that 

can’t be disclosed. 

I am quite proud—I mean, DHS should be very proud of how we 

came together to respond to the blackout along with the rest of the 

Federal Government. But DHS in particular was sort of the point 

in contact in understanding what was going on in the industry. We 

immediately reached out, upon learning what was going on, to the 

industry to determine what was their perspective. I mean, it is the 

unique thing that DHS has the ability to reach, through the 

ISAACS, to the private sector, in this case the NERC, to determine 

what is going on and what is the situational awareness component 

that we need to respond to. Do we have a terrorist event? Because 

precisely how we are positioned to respond is, you look at an event 

like that, then you immediately go to the next step of saying what 

can occur next? Is this a terrorist event? And even if it is not, A, 

could it be exploited? Or, B, if it is a terrorist event, what is the 

next step? And we immediately have the capability to do that. 

So DHS was able to come together very quickly across its directorates, ask those questions, gain situational awareness, and provide direct advice to the Secretary and subsequently to the President about where we were. And then working with the FBI, the 

combination between DHS and FBI, we were able to quickly conclude from an initial perspective that there was no terrorist nexus 

there. 

Mr. MEEK. So were you pleased with the checking process as it 

relates to is it terrorism or is it not terrorism amongst many departments and even the private sector? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEEK. So this report is going to be based upon trying to better what is good already? Or what areas will you be looking at? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, the report is not examining how DHS or 

the Federal community acted. We are really looking at the root 

cause of the blackout. 

Mr. MEEK. And its potential for taking place again? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Correct. That is correct. 

Mr. MEEK. As you know, with the World Trade Center, there 

were many attempts and sometimes folks get great ideas. Will 

there be any discussion on how to not only share with New Yorkers 

but Americans when an attack like that takes place—as you know, 

the power was out, there was no cable television for folks to look 

at, there was really no communications whatsoever. Will that be 

something that DHS will be looking at, to see how can we contact—

I mean, everyone you hear, oh, New Yorkers, they did their thing, 

things went very smoothly, people knew where to go. But there was 

a lot of street hollering on the corner on how do you get out of 

Manhattan. 
39

Does the Department’s looking into reaching out and to individuals need to be through two-way pagers, through the telephone, 

through things that were working? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, sir. In fact, that is really within the domain 

of Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate under Secretary Mike Brown. They are looking, they are doing a deep look 

about that type of communication requirement, first responders, et 

cetera. I would really defer to them. 

Mr. MEEK. Okay. One last question, Mr. Secretary, or I guess a 

concern of mine. I just want to make sure that cyber partners that 

we do have that are working with us against this effort in terrorism, that they are working as hard as possible and together. I 

look at what—your job is almost similar to almost the Intelligence 

Community. It is kind of hard to share information. You have competition, you have private sector needs and technology needs and 

things that they want to keep to themselves. But if is not put on 

the table on behalf of security as it relates to the cyber world here 

in the United States, we may very well have problems. And when 

we have a problem, that means that things will be legislated and 

decisions will be made in haste that individuals may not like. And 

I think it is important that we encourage them to work. 

I wish you well on your report. I am looking forward to seeing 

and hearing more about it. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. MEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman, and want to mention, 

again, that this subcommittee as well as the Border Subcommittee 

will hold our second hearing tomorrow on this interdependency of 

infrastructures. And Mr. Liscouski will be one of the witnesses, as 

well as others from the Department, because I agree with the gentleman from Florida; these are critical issues and we need to learn 

the lessons when it happens the first time so that we are not put 

at a disadvantage. 

The Chair would recognize the Ranking Member. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A lot of the questions 

I thought I would ask have already been asked, so I really just 

have two issues that I want to raise. One has to do with the ISACs. 

You mentioned them in your testimony. And the feedback I have 

received from the private sector is that some of them are performing a lot better than others. And that, in particular, telecom 

actually seems to be working pretty well, IT; but, in the other sectors, that they are basically not functioning. And—and I don’t know 

if this is true or not, but this is what some of the private sector 

people have said—and the problem may be a lack of funding support. At least that is what some of the private sector people identified. 

Do you think that that assessment about some of these ISACs is 

correct? And what should we do to pump them up a bit? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, I think it is fair. I think your characterization of the telecoms and the IT–ISAC as well as others—I think the 

energy ISAC is another good example, oil and gas. We are looking 

at them. I guess the easiest answer is that we are examining the 

best model. 
40

I think currently it is sort of a one-size-fits-all model and it is 

really not the appropriate one. I think the more we learn about the 

way information sharing needs to be propagated across the sectors, 

they are so diverse, many of them are very diverse and not technically connected. We need to look at that more quickly, and we are 

going through that examination process right now. 

Ms. LOFGREN. When will that be completed, do you think? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. You know, completion is probably—I mean, I am 

really looking at changing the model fairly quickly. The funding 

model is one of those things. I don’t want to give you specific data. 

I would like to get back to you with more of an intelligent answer 

about what that is going to look like. I think what I would like to 

do and what I am planning on doing is actually starting a couple 

of different types of pilots to see what does work. And I would be 

happy to share that with you in more detail at a later time when 

we have pretty much our plans finalized. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would be interested in that, if you could keep us 

posted. I am sure the whole committee would like to know about 

it. And if there is a requirement to change the funding stream—

I don’t know whether we need legislation to do that or not—but I 

would be interested in that recommendation from you. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Sure. 

Ms. LOFGREN. And additionally, in addition to the functioning of 

the ISACs, internally I have heard criticism that there is sort of—

they are piped, and that there really needs to be some communication among them as well. So I assume that you are—. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am, that is precisely the point we are 

looking. 

Ms. LOFGREN. All right. The final question I have has to do with 

the vacancy rate in your Department. And when you were talking 

about how challenging it was to come in, I am sure it has been and 

you want to get good people, you want to get the right people; and 

it is hard to start an organization from scratch and try and go 65 

miles an hour while you are doing it. So I don’t want to appear 

overly critical. 

But I am concerned that the vacancy rate is still very high, about 

40 percent, I would think. And in a way I have been concerned 

about this, not just with DHS but other Federal departments when 

we have tried to get people with expertise and technology to come 

to work for the Federal Government. I tried with the former commissioner of the INS before the creation of the Department. I 

mean, we couldn’t get people to come to work for the Federal Government, which is disappointing. And especially now with the terrible economic situation in the tech sector, it seems almost mysterious that we can’t do a faster, better job of recruiting in this sector. 

So the question is: What are you going to do to fill those vacancies? What can we do, if anything, to help you in getting staffed 

up as quickly as possible? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, I appreciate the concern. And, you know, 

attrition rates and vacancy rates are things that always plague 

every business or every government. So it is not a question of that. 

And I can’t speak to the exact number, so I apologize. I mean, we 

can get back to you on that. 
41

But let me just address it by this. First of all, the workforce we 

are attracting is a talented workforce. I mean, we are extremely 

fortunate with some of the folks that we have attracted. And I 

think, you know, in my experience—I was in the government; I left 

my career with the State Department back in 1991 And was very 

impressed with the folks I worked with and my colleagues. I am 

happy to say I think that workforce has continually increased in 

its capabilities, particularly in DHS; I have been gratified to see 

that, folks particularly in the IAIP area. So we have been successful in doing that. 

One of the challenges we have when we recruit people from the 

private sector is going through the clearance process, because the 

clearance process and working at the levels we are working at require us to take a 6—to 9-month clearance process, and you really 

can’t even work effectively at all until you have got those appropriate clearances. So, while we may have people identified in positions, they can’t occupy those positions until they have been vetted 

and the clearances have granted. And that might be contributing 

to some of the vacancies you are hearing about. 

But we are working hard. And, you know, I appreciate your comments and I would like to just kind of, I guess, recognize that the 

people that are there today are really working extremely hard. I 

mean, this country is extremely fortunate, and I have got the benefit of working with them on a daily basis, and they put in some 

incredible hours and they are really dedicated. 

And I can tell you right now, since March 1st, the folks that 

work in our directorate have been working nonstop. I mean, literally, you go in there on Saturdays and Sundays, and some days 

you think it is a Wednesday. You know, it is just—it is staffed, And 

people work hard and they are dedicated. So we are very fortunate. 

Ms. LOFGREN. If I can follow up—and that is good to hear. Perhaps the resources that we should apply then might not even be 

in your Department but in the FBI to—maybe additional resources 

to do the clearances. Would that be of assistance? I mean, there is 

no real reason why it has to take 9 months to do the clearances, 

just the work is the lack of personnel to put on it. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I am not competent to be able to answer that 

question, but I suspect we can probably get back to you on that. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would like to know that. And that may be something we could help to address, because that is something we ought 

to address, it seems to me. 

And I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentlelady. 

Dr. Christensen. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman 

and Ranking Member, it does occur to me, and it came up earlier, 

that there may be reasons for us to ask the assistant secretary to 

meet with us in a closed and classified setting, because there may 

be some questions we might not want to ask in a public hearing. 

I have one further question for you, Assistant Secretary. One of 

the objectives of the National Strategy is to foster adequate training and education programs to support the national security need. 

You talked about the relationship with Carnegie–Mellon and you 

made reference to relationships with other universities. I wonder if 
42

you would elaborate on that some, and also talk a bit about how 

you would ensure the involvement of historically black colleges and 

universities and other minority-serving institutions. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. There are a couple of different ways 

we are addressing that. First of all, my colleague, Under Secretary 

McCreary, has got a program—and forgive me for not knowing the 

exact specifics on this—in which they are creating partnerships 

with universities. And I believe it is among those major components that the partnerships are to enhance educational opportunities for the specific areas that we need. So I think it is probably 

more appropriate to sort of field that question to Under Secretary 

McCreary’s area. 

But in our area and working with other partners, you know, the 

NSA sponsoring the centers of excellence and the university programs that they have, are geared toward enabling opportunity, creating opportunities for educational programs and students to get 

into the information security area in particular. It is an area that 

we have a very keen interest in and we are looking to support that. 

I can’t speak to the programs themselves in terms of where the 

emphasis is on that program in historically black colleges, but I am 

almost certain I remember a conversation with NSA officials that 

they have established centers of excellence at schools that really 

honor diversity. But, again, I can’t speak competently to that question, but I would be happy to get back to you. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Well, given the extensive need for personnel 

who are really—who are well-skilled and trained, and the sensitivity of the issues that we are going to be dealing with, not allowing us to always go overseas to seek personnel for these offices, I 

think it is important that we build up our personnel from within 

and that we extend and expand it to include these institutions as 

well. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I agree. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. Ms. Jackson-Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I again thank you 

for the hearing that we will have tomorrow and the one that we 

are having today. 

I would like to join Congresswoman Christensen on this issue of 

HBCUs and the matching of talent. And I think that your point 

about outreach is extremely important. I would make a suggestion 

that the Secretary be referred to having a meeting with the president of at least a number of our HBCUs. They are certainly—I 

think it is definable as to those institutions that may even have 

those disciplines that would be an excellent feeding source, or a 

source of talent. And I would add, of course, Hispanic-serving institutions as well. We did that in the previous administration with 

having a roundtable with about 10 to 20 HBCU presidents, and it 

really, really is effective in terms of getting them focused and working in partnership with talented individuals who may not be aware 

of the opportunities and but yet they have great talent. 

So I would appreciate it if we could get a response back on that 

request as to the facilitating of that meeting. And any way that we 

can help to facilitate would be happy to do so. 
43

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am, thank you. I think that is a great 

suggestion. And I can tell you, we would like to take you up on 

that, but we will get back to you formally. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I appreciate it very much. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Let me note, if I understand, when I asked 

the question about blackout, just give me your answer again. You 

were saying it is another committee? Or you are going to be here 

tomorrow discussing? I know we have a hearing tomorrow and we 

have that as one of our topics. Is that what you were suggesting 

to me, that you would be able to give more on this issue of what 

impacts cyber had on the blackout tomorrow? Or are you waiting 

on a report? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I may be able to speak at a top level tomorrow; 

but in earnest, I have to tell you, we have to really conclude the 

report. We are still going through the analysis. So it is really any 

preliminary conclusions we come to at this point can easily be 

eclipsed by other facts that might lead us to a different conclusion. 

So I will just have to defer to the report, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. And that report will be—what is the date are 

we looking at for that? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I don’t know if it has been published in terms of 

the specific dates. I know the task force is shooting for sometime 

in the late October time frame. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Late October. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. And that is, of course, a public report? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Ma’am, I don’t know, to be honest with you. I will 

have to find out. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. All right. Well, will you provide us with that 

information even tomorrow as to the status of that report? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Certainly. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Let me just pursue briefly the line of questioning that I had before about authority and the role of DHS. And 

I think you said to me that the role is to protect from cyber terrorism; that DHS protects from cyber terrorism, and the FBI is in 

the business of responding to the attacks or really on the aggressive end of it. 

My concern is does it make sense to divide the experts, the ones 

that are telling us the story, and then those who have to react to 

the story? Is there a protocol to have two teams, the two teams 

interact with each other? And then when there is a crisis—that is 

a question I was asking—who is in charge? Now, you indicated the 

FBI. But then how does the component that you work with get 

merged into the FBI? Because when we are in crisis, we need all 

of the thinkers working together, the reactors; but those who say 

I have got a solution, because I know on the protection side what 

we had to do. And a protection response, is it making it more difficult to get people in the protection side? Because certainly there 

is a lot more energy and excitement maybe on the response side. 

But I am particularly concerned about the authority question and 

the protocol that would merge them, if necessary, and whether 

there is interaction even in the backdrop of the day-to-day work, 

which I think is extremely important. 
44

Mr. LISCOUSKI. I thank you for the opportunity to clarify, because I think I misled you a bit on my remarks earlier. It is not 

unique to the FBI in terms of the enforcement and the investigative responsibility. The Secret Service—and, as you know, Secret 

Service is a component of DHS with whom we closely work—also 

has a responsibility to investigate cyber crime. In fact, within the 

financial domain, they are really the preeminent experts. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. That was a new addition to their responsibilities. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am, and they are effectively executing 

against that. They have some tremendous talent, as does the FBI. 

We are very ecumenical in our approach. We try to ensure that we 

have got the right resources. And I think the recent—forgive me, 

I don’t know if it was Blaster or SoBig in which both the FBI and 

the Secret Service jointly investigated, and they worked extremely 

well together; they complemented themselves extremely well. 

From my point of view, you can never have enough resources to 

investigate these things. So I think if a little is good, more is better 

in this case. And the unique capabilities that are within the domain of the Bureau and the FBI I think both complement themselves and overlap where they are necessary; it is appropriate. We 

work very closely. 

And I will just state this: that my intention in creating our capability within IAP and the NCSD is to continuously increase our reliance upon the Secret Service for their capabilities. So, by extension, I would say DHS clearly has the authorities we need. When 

I was discussing this as it relates to the protection responsibility, 

it was really relevant to the IAIP mission and the infrastructure 

protection mission specifically. We do not have investigative authority. We don’t need investigative authority, to be candid with 

you. We have the resources in-house, the DHS, to investigative requirements as we identify them. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. But you feel you have sufficient authority to 

work on the matters that you are working on, but also to coordinate with the other agencies when there is a time of crisis? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Yes, ma’am. In fact, I think we have been able 

to demonstrate that effectively, as I indicated, through the recent 

Blaster and SoBig viruses, the blackout. All those incidents have 

served to really validate the fact that this approach is the appropriate one. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentlelady. 

Does Mr. Meek have additional questions? 

Mr. MEEK. Just a small one, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I guess we are going to need at a future date—

and I don’t know, maybe the Chairman and others are thinking 

about it—but a closed hearing; we can ask a few aggressive questions as it relates to cybersecurity and as it relates to the security 

of our infrastructure here in the United States. 

What level of, would you say, urgency and concern that jointly 

government and the private sector may have as it relates to a cyber 

attack? The reason why I ask that question, Mr. Secretary—there 

may be a quick answer that you can give me—is the fact that we 

know that there are terrorist groups that are abroad, and possibly 
45

could be domestic, that would like to take our ability to be able to 

live financially and socially through the Internet. And since we are 

doing—seems that we are doing a good job as it relates to trying 

to keep terrorists and track them down before they cross our borders, and using the approach that they are using in Iraq right now 

of saying why do we have to come to the United States, we can go 

to Iraq and still accomplish our goal—what kind of urgency do you 

see? Because I hear a lot of we are fine, we don’t need X, Y, and 

Z, when I know that there are issues out there that need to be addressed and there are issues that this subcommittee needs to address legislatively. There are issues that the Department needs to 

address rule-wise and administratively. But maybe there are some 

areas that you feel that are important that we need to fill the gap. 

And I am just trying to think of the urgency. 

I used to be a law enforcement person, and no one is really concerned about the parking lot security outside of any hospital until 

someone gets pushed down and their wallet or purse is taken. So 

I am trying to make sure that what—from a scale of 1 to 10, where 

do you think we are and where do we need to be? Or are we in 

the right position right now? Everyone, hands on deck, just like 

they were for the last couple of years? What do you think we need 

to do here? 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Well, I mean, let me just clarify my statements 

earlier about where we are. I think we are positioned for success. 

I think we have got the right architecture, the right framework to 

build on. I think we know where we have to go. But I did not mean 

to imply that the world out there is not a bad world. 

I agree with you 100 percent; there are some serious threats that 

we face. The cyber community, the cyber world is one which we are 

just really beginning to understand and beginning to see the evidence of what those threats can do to manifest themselves in our 

technologies. So in terms of sense of urgencies, I don’t want to sit 

here calmly explaining to you what we are doing and give you the 

false perception that I am not worried about it. I am worried about 

it all the time. And we need to be worried about it. And the community needs to be worried about it, because we are not in control 

of those threats. 

The challenge we have on the cyber world, unlike the physical 

world where you can really put your arms around somebody and 

identify the command-and-control structure and the capabilities 

that they may or may not have to conduct an attack, the cyber 

world is a lot easier to work in. And although the technologies that 

you need to do to—there is a debate about how technically savvy 

you have to be to really conduct a really effective attack or a long 

sustainable attack. I would argue that I wouldn’t want to wait to 

find that out, and we need to move aggressively and we need to be 

worried about it. 

So I am happy to sit calmly before this committee and talk about 

the things we are doing. But we are not sitting back calmly back 

at DHS and other places, just thinking about are we doing the 

right things. We are really trying to move out and get urgency 

around this. 

So I agree with you and I share that, and I appreciate your comments of concern, because we are concerned about it. These threats 
46

are real, they are ubiquitous, they are everything from the kid that 

gets bored and decides that he is going to put a virus out there, 

to organized crime groups that are out there exploiting our networks and exploiting our information and extorting them. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Terrorist groups, state groups, you name it. They 

are out there. Common thieves, common criminals. They all have 

the capabilities of doing these things and doing it all the time. We 

are constantly under attack on the Internet, and you know, if you 

talk to any of the providers out there and you talk to the folks who 

are providing services on the Internet community, the backbone, 

they see threats all the time. They see stuff, it just would boggle 

your mind. Fortunately, you know they haven’t manifest themselves in anything serious yet. And it is the ‘‘yet’’ that worries me, 

the ability to do that is out there, so. 

Mr. MEEK. Mr. Secretary, if I may, that’s where I mean, you are 

hitting exactly where I thought you would hit as it relates to the 

threat. And the threat is real. We have individuals that are being 

robbed right now over the Internet, stuck up, ransom, what have 

you, $50,000 transferred here and no one will ever know about it 

because it has a lot to do with stocks and trades and investors and 

security of their own infrastructure. I just want to make sure that 

we continue to have a sense of urgency. It is not about the preparedness. It is about the consistency of the preparedness. And I 

know my job and I know our job is to support the Department and 

the private sector in its efforts, but at the same time, make sure 

not only that DHS has what it needs, but we keep the pressure on 

all players of making sure that we do what we have to do, because 

the last thing that we want is for you for me or anyone on this 

committee to be identified as okay. You are okay, I am okay, okay, 

fine. Everything is fine. We need to make sure that you are okay, 

I am okay, how do we move this ball and play offense because they 

are playing offense. 

So I am glad to hear that you are still sitting on the edge of your 

seat personally and that people who serve in your capacity in the 

private sector has that same sitting on the edge of the seat hopefully as it relates to playing toward overall infrastructure protection. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LISCOUSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. THORNBERRY. I thank the gentleman. And I think that discussion that he just had with the witness is an appropriate way to 

end our hearing because—and I have some additional questions I 

would like to submit for the record, but I think that sense of urgency that he described is difficult to maintain, not just with cyber, 

with the whole range of Homeland Security responsibilities. But, 

yet, we must try to keep that sense of urgency because there is so 

much at stake. Mr. Liscouski, I will say for me, personally, I am 

impressed by the actions that you have taken in the cyber field to 

help bring us closer to where we need to be. I am also convinced 

that you maintain this sense of urgency. 

As you said at the end of your opening statement, we are partners in this effort. That doesn’t mean we are a rubber stamp, it 

doesn’t mean we are a cheerleading squad. But we are partners 

with you to try to help maintain the sense of urgency and take real 

concrete steps that help our country be safer. We look forward to 
47

working with you in the future to do that. And again, thank you 

for your appearance today. I thank the gentlelady from California 

as always for her work and with that the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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