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THE FUTURE OF CYBER AND

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECURITY AT DHS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC 

SECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE 

PROTECTION, AND CYBERSECURITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

Serial No. 109–102

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

PETER T. KING, New York, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

TOM DAVIS, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

CHARLIE DENT, Pennsylvania 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC SECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, AND

CYBERSECURITY

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

PETER T. KING, New York (Ex Officio) 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex Officio)

(II) 
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Economic Security, 

Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 1

Prepared Opening Statement .............................................................................. 2

The Honorable Loretta Sanchez, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Economic 

Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity .................................... 3 

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 39

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

State of Texas ....................................................................................................... 43

The Honorable Stevan Pearce, a Representative in Congress From New Mexico .......................................................................................................................... 55

The Honorable Mark E. Souder, a Representative in Congress From the 

State Indiana ........................................................................................................ 51

WITNESSES

PANEL I 

The Honorable George Foresman, Undersecretary for Preparedness, U.S. 

Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 4

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

Mr. David Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, 

Government Accountability Office: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 9

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 12

PANEL II 

Mr. David Barron, Chair, Telecommunications Sector Coordinating Council: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 93

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 95

Mr. Guy Copeland, Chair, Information Technology Sector, Coordinating 

Council: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 80

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 82

Mr. Paul B. Kurtz, Executive Director, Cyber Security Industry Alliance: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 74

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 75

Mr. William Pelgrin, Director, New YorK State Office of Cyber Security 

and Critical Infrastructure: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 58

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 60

(1)

THE FUTURE OF CYBER AND 

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECURITY 

AT DHS 

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC SECURITY, INFRASTRUCTURE

PROTECTION, AND CYBERSECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:21 p.m., in Room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Daniel Lungren [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Lungren, Souder, Pearce, Sanchez, 

Dicks, and Jackson-Lee. 

Mr. LUNGREN. [Presiding.] I would like to welcome everyone this 

afternoon to the Subcommittee on Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection and Cybersecurity of the Homeland Security as 

hearing on the future of cyber and telecommunications security at 

Department of Homeland Security. 

The security of information infrastructure has not received the 

emphasis that it deserves, in spite of the fact that our economy and 

our nation’s preparedness is so dependent on this technology. 

Two days ago, this country commemorated the 5-year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil. The attacks of 

9/11 not only killed thousands of American citizens, but also targeted our way of life. 

Those responsible have vowed to continue to attack our country 

and our economy. 

Information and communications technology are a prime target 

for those intending to do us harm and a successful terrorist attack 

could cause immeasurable danger and damage to our everyday 

lives, for example, disrupt our electrical power supply or disrupt 

our ability to respond to emergencies. 

The Department of Homeland Security has been designated the 

point of government contact for the critical infrastructure owners 

and operators within both the information technology sector and 

the telecommunications sector. 

It is, therefore, incumbent upon the department to develop an organization that can work effectively with these two critical sectors 

to protect the assets under their control that benefit the entire 

country. 

This committee has been critical of the department’s priorities 

regarding cybersecurity and telecommunications in the past and 
2

has called for the creation of an assistant secretary for these issues 

to ensure their visibility within the department. 

Disappointingly, it has been over a year since the secretary announced the creation of acting secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications, and, yet, the position has not been filled. 

We are concerned the department has not been as effective as 

possible in ensuring the security and resiliency of our information 

infrastructure or its efficient reconstitution in the case of an incident of national significance. 

We have been fortunate enough not to have suffered a debilitating information infrastructure incident, but we cannot rely upon 

good fortunate alone. We must create a strong, focused organization to ensure our cyber assets our protected and to enable us to 

respond effectively to a cyber incident. 

Today we will hear from Undersecretary for Preparedness George 

Foresman, to whom the yet to be named assistant secretary will report. And we look forward to hearing your vision for the department with regard to these important issues. 

We will also hear from David Powner, with the Government Accountability Office, who has reviewed the department’s programs 

and priorities for the past several years and will present their findings and recommendations for going forward. 

On our second panel, we will hear from William Pelgrin, the director of New York State’s Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Coordination. He has experience in running a government organization task, with coordinating the protection of information infrastructure, and will provide important insight on how 

this can be done successfully. 

Also, Mr. Paul Kurtz, executive director of the Cybersecurity Industry Alliance, will provide a private sector perspective on the department’s leadership, priorities and programs. 

We will also hear from Guy Copeland, the chairman of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council, and David Barron, 

the chairman of the Telecommunications Sector Coordinating 

Council. 

Both of these gentlemen have extensive experience with managing critical information infrastructure and dealing with the department and they will provide private sector expectations and priorities for the future. 

I would like to thank all the witnesses for joining us today, look 

forward to hearing everyone’s testimony. 

Before recognizing the ranking member, Ms. Sanchez, for any 

opening statement she may wish to make, I give everybody permission to take their coats off, because I don’t know why we decided 

that we need to heat the place up in September in Washington, 

D.C. But someone has evidently thought that was a good thing.

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANIEL LUNGREN

I would like to welcome everyone this afternoon to the Subcommittee on Economic 

Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity of the Committee on Homeland Security’s hearing on the future of cyber and telecommunications security at 

the Department of Homeland Security. 

The security of our information infrastructure has not received the emphasis that 

it deserves, in spite of the fact that our economy and our nation’s preparedness is 

so dependent on this technology. 
3

Two days ago this country commemorated the five year anniversary of the worst 

terrorist attack on American soil. 

The attacks of 9/11 not only killed thousands of American citizens they also targeted our way of life. Those responsible have vowed to continue to attack our Country, and our economy. 

Information and communications technology are a prime target for those intending to do us harm. 

A successful terrorist attack could cause immeasurable damage to our everyday 

lives, for example, disrupt our electrical power supply or disrupt our ability to respond to emergencies. 

The Department of Homeland Security has been designated the point of governmental contact for the critical infrastructure owners and operators within both the 

information technology sector and the telecommunications sector. 

It is therefore incumbent upon DHS to develop an organization that can work effectively with these two critical sectors to protect the assets under their control that 

benefit the entire country. 

This Committee has been critical of the Department’s priorities regarding 

cybersecurity and telecommunications in the past and has called for the creation of 

an Assistant Secretary for these issues to ensure their visibility within the department. 

It has been over a year since the Secretary announced the creation of an Assistant 

Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications and yet the position has not 

been filled. 

I am concerned that the Department has not been as effective as possible in ensuring the security and resiliency of our information infrastructure or its efficient 

reconstitution in the case of an incident of national significance. 

We have been fortunate enough not to have suffered a debilitating information infrastructure incident, but we can not rely upon good fortune alone; we must create 

a strong, focused organization to ensure our cyber assets are protected and to enable 

us to respond effectively to a cyber incident. 

Today we will hear from Under Secretary for Preparedness, George Foresman, to 

whom the yet to be named Assistant Secretary will report. I look forward to hearing 

his vision for the Department with regard to these important issues. 

We will also hear from David Powner with the Government Accountability Office 

who has reviewed the Department’s programs and priorities for the past several 

years and will present their findings and recommendations for going forward. 

On our second panel we will hear from William Pelgrin the Director of New York 

State’s Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination. Mr. 

Pelgrin has experience in running a government organization tasked with coordinating the protection of information infrastructure and will provide important insight on how this can be done successfully. 

Also, Mr. Paul Kurtz, the Executive Director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance will provide a private sector perspective on the Department’s leadership, priorities and programs. 

We will also hear from Guy Copeland, the chairman of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council and David Barron the chairman of the Telecommunications Sector Coordinating Council. Both of these gentlemen have extensive experience with managing critical information infrastructure and dealing with 

the Department. They will provide private sector expectations and priorities for the 

future. 

I would like to thank all our witnesses for joining us today. 

I look forward to hearing everyone’s testimony, and I now recognize the Ranking 

Member, Ms. Sanchez, for any opening statement she may wish to make.

Ms. Sanchez? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for agreeing 

to hold this hearing. I think it is an incredibly important one. 

As you know, cybersecurity is a critical issue that I believe deserves a lot more attention than this committee and others have 

been paying to it, and I think it also needs a lot more resources 

than we have devoted to it in the Department of Homeland Security. 

Our whole infrastructure, when you think about business these 

days, relies on secure information networks, so that we can ensure 
4

that reliable operations of water systems, electrical grids, emergency response systems, Internet, everything. 

In addition, for many Americans, it is really a part of their lives. 

This is the way we communicate. And, unfortunately, I think that 

the information networks that we have that we really rely on are 

really big areas for attack. 

And, you know, we are not talking about maybe losing people, 

but we are talking about an economic crunch that would happen 

to our nation. And I am always just as concerned that the terrorists affect us economically, because then I think they will have won 

this issue of trying to come after our lifestyle. 

So I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses. There is 

a lot of issues that I am concerned with with respect to 

cybersecurity. I want to find out when the assistant secretary for 

cybersecurity and telecommunications is going to be appointed. 

I think the position has been open over a year now. I also know 

that there are a lot of titles in this area that are still acting and 

I want to find out when we are going to see more permanent appointments of people, because I think that this is just one little 

piece, but it sends a really big message. 

Do we take cybersecurity seriously? And when we have acting 

and empty spots, et cetera, then I think we are not devoting the 

resources we need. And, lastly, do we have the right resources for 

the department? And I look forward to discussing these. 

Thank you for calling this hearing, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentlelady for her comments. 

I might say that I know the ranking member of the full committee and the chairman of the full committee wish they could be 

here. They are on the floor right now managing time on the bill 

commemorating 9/11 and the efforts of Congress thereafter. 

The chair now recognizes Mr. George Foresman, the undersecretary for preparedness, to testify. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GEORGE FORESMAN, 

UNDERSECRETARY FOR PREPAREDNESS, DEPARTMENT OF 

HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Sanchez, and 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss cyber and telecommunications security. 

Before I begin, I would very much like to acknowledge this committee’s exceptional leadership and dedication to strengthening the 

cybersecurity of our nation. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to working closely with this committee to receive your guidance and to collaborate as we continue 

the process that we have already made. 

You have my written statement and I offer that for the record. 

I would like to briefly, though, highlight several points. First, 

there has, in fact, been much discussion about the department’s 

ability to find and hire a qualified individual to serve as the assistant secretary for cyber and telecommunications security. 

I want to be very clear. This has been and remains a top priority 

for the department. We are, in fact, in the final stages of a security 

review process for a candidate that we feel is very well qualified. 

We look forward to announcing the candidate with Congress very 
5

soon and I am confident that this individual will continue to build 

on the progress that is being made every day. 

Second, today, the department is releasing its after action report 

from our recent government, private sector, national and international cybersecurity exercise, Cyberstorm. 

This report will measurably advance refinements to operational 

protocols and our coordination between the public sector and the 

private sector. 

Its lessons will not simply be documented. They will be implemented. 

Third, telecommunication networks and information technology 

activities are both mutually dependent and interdependent. They 

have, in fact, converged. By the end of the year, we will complete 

our efforts to collocate together the U.S. computer emergency readiness team and the national coordination center for telecommunications to improve operational coordination. 

This means better coordination among all levels of government 

and better coordination between government and the private sector 

during threats and actual events. 

Secretary Chertoff said last week, in his speech that reflected on 

the 5 years since 9/11, the way to protect the critical infrastructure 

is to work in partnership with federal, state and local officials, and 

with the private sector folks who actually own the things that we 

are trying to protect. 

This collaboration is key to our approach to protecting telecommunications and cyber infrastructure. We remain resolute in 

our approach that will balance the security of the nation against 

the economic security of the nation. 

Last month, our cybersecurity experts worked quietly with their 

counterparts at Microsoft to address critical software vulnerability. 

Microsoft was competent in their partnership with DHS and quickly brought this to our attention. 

While Microsoft worked over several weeks to develop a patch, 

our U.S. CERT was quietly and effectively monitoring Internet activity to ensure the vulnerabilities were not being exploited. 

At the same time, the department was working domestically and 

internationally with our private sector partners and public sector 

partners to mitigate terrorist threats associated with the British 

airline plot. 

These two concurrent actions are just examples of many of the 

day-to-day public and private sector activities taking place in the 

department’s preparedness efforts. 

Maintaining these types of collaborations remains, as you know, 

as it relates to cybersecurity and telecommunications security, a 

multi-dimensional challenge. From personal computers in homes to 

vast networks to control systems to the Internet, cyber and telecommunications security presents enormous challenges. 

These challenges are obvious: prioritizing our work, partnering 

for effective collaboration, balancing security and economic considerations, and, most notably, increasing understanding. 

The other witnesses today will add clarity to this points from 

varying perspectives. I think it is safe to say, however, there is no 

one that will appear before you today that does not share the belief 
6

that protecting America’s cyber and telecommunications systems is 

as critical to national security as it is to citizen security. 

I want to be clear, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. Progress is being made every day. There is more to be 

done. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as you well know, 

the security of America’s cyber and telecommunications systems do 

not lend themselves to surrounding one building with heavily 

armed police officers or simply mandating an action and we are 

safe. 

Simply put, there is no magic bullet. 

In closing, the success of our national cyber and telecommunications security efforts depend on unity of purpose and continuing 

public/private sector collaboration. This is serious business and we 

are serious about this business. 

We look forward to continuing discussions with Congress on the 

wide range of policy issues that we must confront together. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Foresman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE FORESMAN

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for 

inviting me to speak about cyber security and the recovery and reconstitution of 

critical networks in the event of a catastrophic Internet disruption. 

One of the most pressing challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security 

is preparing for attacks on the Internet and the information networks supporting 

our critical infrastructure. Our vision, our philosophy, and our strategy for preventing, responding to, and recovering from cyber attacks reflect the expanding importance of communications and the information infrastructure in all aspects of our 

lives today. Policies that advance a safe and secure communications infrastructure 

rely on fostering valuable relationships between the public and private sectors, and 

promoting public trust and confidence. Strong policies also project stability and 

strength to those who wish us harm. 

The key to continued success is partnering strategically with the communications 

and information technology sectors, end-users of Internet technologies, and other experts. 

During the past several weeks our cyber security experts worked quietly with 

their counterparts at Microsoft to address a critical software vulnerability first identified to us by the Department of State’s cyber defense team. In the interim between 

identification of the vulnerability and development of the solution, the Department 

was closely monitoring technical indicators for indications of additional exploitation 

of the vulnerability. Once a patch was available, the Department’s U.S. Computer 

Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT) coordinated an alert with Microsoft. DHS 

issued an alert through the National Cyber Alert System urging the public, private 

industry, as well as federal users to apply the security patch in order to protect 

their systems. Overshadowed in the news media by the successful foiling of the U.K. 

terror threat, this collaboration is typical of the kind of behind-the-scenes, day-today public-private cyber security activity that exemplifies the work being accomplished between the Department and so many of our strategic partners. 

These partnerships also entail strengthening cooperation across the government 

institutions and, at a minimum, finding ways to cultivate support outside of the Department where expertise clearly exists. We are actively collaborating with 116 private firms. We are working closely with the private sector entities established within the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) framework to collaborate on 

risk management, including the Information Technology (IT) Sector Coordinating 

Council (SCC) and the Telecommunications SCC. From an operational perspective, 

we work with the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center 

(IT–ISAC) and the National Coordinating Center (NCC)/Telecommunications ISAC 

through various information sharing mechanisms, including the US-CERT Portal. 

Our partners, both public and private, are involved in a number of programmatic 

activities that address software assurance, Internet disruption, as well as exercises 

such as Cyber Storm. 
7

In addition, there are about 400 firms that are part of the Process Control Systems Forum, which was recently transferred from Science and Technology Directorate to National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) and addresses Control Systems 

security. There are 21 associations that we work with on a regular basis that represent hundreds of companies, including large enterprises and smaller companies. 

Whether public or private, these partnerships must deliver real and measurable 

value in light of the catastrophic damages that could occur to our national cyber assets if we do not collaborate effectively. 

Finally, we must reinforce a culture of preparedness and increasingly shift from 

a reactive to a proactive stance. In sum, we must prepare by promoting effective 

security strategies that evolve as the risks evolve.

Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications

Mr. Chairman, the Committee has expressed as a priority the designation 

of the Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications, and 

has communicated interest in the Department’s plan to fill this vacancy. 

Mr. Chairman, the Department shares the Committee’s view on the importance 

of filling the position of Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications with a qualified candidate. 

Given the complexity of the portfolio, we believe it is important to fill this position 

with a person of necessary talent and expertise who understands both policy and 

technology issues regarding cyber security and telecommunications and can further 

strengthen our national efforts.I am personally engaged in this process and, in the 

interim, am providing program direction to the talented men and women who are 

part of our NCSD and National Communications System (NCS). Because of the importance of our mission, all parties want to ensure that the individual appointed to 

this position possesses the right combination of skills, experience, and leadership 

necessary to succeed. 

In the interim, I want to assure you, Mr. Chairman, that I am personally overseeing strategic management objectives associated with NCSD and specifically 

Internet recovery. These include, by way of example: • Positioning the NCSD, especially the US Computer Emergency Readiness 

Team (US–CERT), and the NCS so these organizations are structured to be at 

the forefront of preventing, responding to, and recovering from massive Internet 

disruptions. Just as FEMA is on point for coordinating disaster response, and 

the Coast Guard is on point for coordinating the response to an oil spill, key 

experts like NCS and NCSD must be capable of coordinating our response to 

events that target the Internet; 

• Re-aligning CS&T component entities to create a cohesive organization. The 

NCS and NCSD (including the US–CERT and the NCC) must more fully synchronize their activities, without a loss of either’s core mission capabilities. 

Communications convergence, threats against the communications infrastructure, the increasing use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) for emergency 

communications purposes, and other influences demand that we merge the work 

of these entities to create new and stronger synergies and; 

• Ensuring resources are sufficiently allocated to meet new needs. I am personally overseeing the development of a budget strategy that spans the next five 

years. This strategy is essential for shepherding CS&T priority programs into 

the next decade.

Information Sharing and Internet Recovery 

Mr. Chairman, the Committee has communicated interest in the programs within the Department that are designed to improve information 

sharing regarding the recovery of the Internet 

We fully recognize the challenges inherent in our preparedness responsibilities. As 

the President stated in the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, it is the policy 

of the United States to protect against ‘‘the debilitating disruption of the operation 

of information systems for critical infrastructures and, thereby, help to protect the 

people, economy, and national security of the United States.’’ The strategy also underscores the importance of partnering with the private sector as well as State, 

local, and tribal governments to effectuate this policy. 

On my fourth day as Undersecretary for Preparedness, I met with the Business 

Roundtable to discuss strategic collaboration and their Internet reconstitution study. 

We outlined a 120-day plan to advance our collaboration on this important work and 

continue to work in tandem with the Roundtable as they expand their efforts to 

focus on business needs and issues regarding Internet recovery and reconstitution 

in the coming year. The timeframes for specific actions and results will be the topic 

of more discussion with the Business Roundtable in the next several months. That 

effort supplements the work we are doing with the IT–SCC and the Telecommuni-
8

cations SCC under the NIPP to address Internet protection and prioritization as 

part of our collaborative approach to risk management in the core sectors for the 

Internet. 

US–CERT, NCC & the NAIRG 

In addition to coordinating with the Business Roundtable, our outreach specifically focuses on building relationships with private industry owners and operators 

of the Internet and information networks. For example, the US-Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT) continues to develop operational relationships 

and processes to enhance its ability to respond to an Internet disruption of national 

significance through its work with the IT–ISAC, and with the North American Incident Response Group (NAIRG) of industry participants. In addition, the NCC represents a fully collaborative model as the ISAC for the Telecommunications Sector, 

with both public and private participation in its operations. 

The US–CERT has deployed several programs as part of its efforts to support 

cyber incident response. We expect funding in Fiscal Year 2007 to reach approximately $37 million. These funds support deployment of multiple programs, including 

the Einstein Program, which tracks attacks on federal information systems and 

warns stakeholders in near real-time. Other program areas funded as part of this 

total include an Internet Health Service for federal agency incident response teams, 

the US–CERT’s 24X7 cyber incident handling center, vulnerability management, 

forensics education and support, and malicious code analysis.

Internet Disruption Working Group (IDWG) 

The NCSD and NCS have also established an Internet Disruption Working Group 

(IDWG) to address the resiliency and recovery of Internet functions in the event of 

a major cyber incident. With public and private sector representatives, the IDWG’s 

near-term objectives help to augment the level of information sharing among government and the private sector. The IDWG is also undertaking an information sharing assessment to better understand the information exchange landscape involving 

Internet incidents.

National Cyber Response Coordination Group (NCRCG) 

The Business Roundtable report also underscores the role of the National Cyber 

Response Coordination Group (NCRCG). Established in partnership with the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice in the National Response Plan’s 

(NRP) Cyber Annex, the NCRCG serves as the Federal government’s principal interagency mechanism for coordinating the federal effort to respond to and recover from 

cyber incidents of national significance and includes 19 federal agencies including 

the Intelligence Community. The NCSD is working with industry to establish a private sector counterpart to the NCRCG, which would communicate and collaborate 

with the Federal government NCRCG during times of crisis. 

Mr. Chairman, further detail regarding the Committee’s inquiries related to the 

goals, resources, and timeframes for implementation associated with these programs 

is also provided in the Department’s recent letter in response to your July 5, 2006 

query.

The Role of US–CERT in Internet Recovery 

Mr. Chairman, the Committee has expressed concern about the role and 

responsibility of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team 

with regard to Internet reconstitution. 

US–CERT is the operational component of the National Cyber Security Division 

and represents a partnership between the Department and the public and private 

sectors. US–CERT is charged with protecting our nation’s Internet infrastructure by 

coordinating defense against and response to cyber attacks. US–CERT is responsible 

for: • Analyzing and reducing cyber threats and vulnerabilities; • Disseminating cyber threat warning information; and • Coordinating incident response activities. 

As indicated above, I am personally overseeing the retooling of the US-CERT and 

CS&T to ensure that roles and responsibilities align with our mission with regard 

to Internet recovery and the NRP.

The Role of FEMA in Internet Recovery 

Mr. Chairman, the Committee has communicated interest in learning about 

the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with regard to restoration of Internet functions in the case of a major disruption 

or attack.

Depending upon the nature of the disruption or attack, FEMA, under the direction of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and advised by the Assistant Secretary 

for Cyber Security and Telecommunications and other Department officials, may be 
9

called upon to support industry and other Federal efforts to restore connections to 

the Internet. FEMA’s specific responsibilities under the National Response Plan 

through Emergency Support Function (ESF) #5—Emergency Management may entail providing logistical, communications or administrative support as they would for 

any other emergency or disaster that they do not have the primary lead role. However FEMA would not have the lead role for Internet restoration.

Conclusion 

The National Cyber Security Division has established its mission and priority objectives, developed a strategic plan, and undertaken significant steps to implement 

its strategic plan across the programs outlined here. Our progress to date is tangible: we have a construct for public-private partnership; we have a track record of 

success in our cyber operations; we have established relationships at various levels 

to manage cyber incidents; we have built international communities of interest to 

address a global problem; and we have tested ourselves at a critical development 

stage and will continue to examine our internal policies, procedures, and communications paths in future exercises. We are building on each of these achievements 

to take further steps to address Internet recovery and reconstitution as well as to 

increase our overall cyber preparedness and improve our response and recovery capabilities. 

In this ever-evolving environment, we know that we must always be attuned to 

new threats, new vulnerabilities, and new technologies. We need to be flexible 

enough to adjust our efforts to meet these new challenges. 

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for its time today, and I appreciate this 

opportunity to bring further transparency to these important cyber security priorities.

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Foresman, for your 

testimony. 

The chair will now recognize Mr. David Powner, the director of 

information technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office, to testify. 

And, again, the full text of your comments will be in the record, 

and we would ask you to summarize for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID POWNER, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT ISSUES, GOVERNMENT 

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. POWNER. Thank you, Chairman Lungren, Ranking Member 

Sanchez, and members of the subcommittee. We appreciate the opportunity to testify on the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts associated with securing our nation’s critical infrastructures 

from cybersecurity threats. 

Recent attacks and threats have underscored the need to effectively manage and bolster cybersecurity of our nation’s critical infrastructures. For example, criminal groups, foreign intelligence 

services, and terrorists are threats to our nation’s computers and 

networks. 

To address these threats, federal law and policy calls for critical 

infrastructure protection activities and establishes DHS as our nation’s focal point. It also designates other agencies to coordinate 

with key sectors, including energy, banking and finance, and telecommunications. 

This afternoon, as requested, I will summarize three key points. 

First, DHS has many responsibilities called for in law and policy 

that remain unfulfilled. Second, many challenges confront the department, including organizational stability and leadership. And, 

third, I will highlight our key recommendations to improve our nation’s cybersecurity posture. 
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Expanding on each of these. Last year, we reported to you, Mr. 

Chairman, that based on federal law and policy, DHS has 13 key 

cybersecurity responsibilities that include developing a national 

plan, enhancing public-private information sharing of cyber 

threats, vulnerabilities and attacks, conducting a national cyber 

threat assessment, facilitating vulnerability assessments, and coordinating incident response and recovery efforts, if, in fact, attacks 

occur. 

Although DHS has initiated efforts that begin to address each of 

its responsibilities, the extent of progress varies and more work remains on each. 

For example, its computer emergency response team, referred to 

the U.S. CERT, issues warnings about vulnerabilities and coordinates responsibilities for cyber attacks. However, our nation still 

lacks a national threat assessment, sector vulnerability assessments, a mature analysis of warning capability, and key recovery 

plans, including a plan for recovering Internet functions. 

Despite federal policy requiring DHS to develop an integrated 

public-private Internet recovery plan, to date, no such plan exists. 

Such a plan is important because the Internet has been targeted 

and attacked and private sector companies, who own the majority 

of the Internet infrastructure, deal with cyber and physical disruptions on a regular basis. 

Several recent cyber attacks highlight the importance of having 

robust Internet recovery plans, including a 2002 coordinated denial 

of service attack that targeted all 13 Internet root servers. 

DHS faces a number of challenges in building its credibility as 

a stable, authoritative and capable organization that can fulfill its 

cyber critical infrastructure responsibilities. 

These include achieving organizational stability and authority. 

Filling the assistant secretary for cyber and telecommunications 

position is critical. However, leveraging this new authority will remain a challenge. 

Another challenge is establishing effective partnerships and information sharing arrangements with other government entities 

and the private sector. 

During our most recent interviews, representatives from various 

sectors told us that the level of trust is not sufficient to have productive information sharing. 

In addition, DHS needs to demonstrate value, meaning that it 

needs to provide useful and timely information on such items as 

threats and analytical products to key stakeholders. 

Regarding challenges that have impeded Internet recovery 

progress, it is unclear what government entity is in charge, what 

the government’s role should be, and when they should get involved. 

Over the last several years, we have made a series of recommendations to enhance the cybersecurity of critical infrastructures that demand immediate attention, including conducting important threat and vulnerability assessments, developing a strategic analysis and warning capability for identifying potential 

threats, developing a strategy to protect infrastructure control systems, and developing recovery plans to respond to attacks, including a plan for Internet reconstitution. 
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In summary, Mr. Chairman, DHS has made progress in planning 

and coordinating efforts to enhance cybersecurity, but much more 

needs to be done, including conducting threat vulnerability assessments, bolstering our analytical capabilities, aggressively pursuing 

threat and vulnerability reduction efforts, and developing recovery 

plans. 

Our testimony today lays out a comprehensive roadmap of key 

recommendations to help DHS tackle its many responsibilities. 

Until DHS addresses its many challenges and more fully completes critical activities, it cannot function as the cybersecurity 

focal point intended in federal law and policy, resulting in increased risks that large portions of our national infrastructure will 

be unprepared to effectively manage cybersecurity attacks. 

This concludes my statement. I would be pleased to respond to 

any questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Powner follows:]
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Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much for your testimony, from 

both of you. 

If I knew how to work this thing, I would work it, too. Anyway, 

I will try and keep myself to 5 minutes. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, we do have a bunch of technical 

experts in the room. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LUNGREN. I know that. I just don’t know which button to 

push. I am sure it will work out. 

Thank you very much for your testimony. I will give myself the 

first 5 minutes to ask you these questions. 

Mr. Foresman, in your testimony, you acknowledge—and in the 

letter that I received from the secretary, dated September 12, that 

I received, I guess, today or last evening, in response to my letter 

of July 5—you acknowledge the importance of cybersecurity. 

Yet, this position has remained vacant for such a long period of 

time. From the outside looking in, that would suggest that you 

don’t have that really at the top of your priority list or you don’t 

think it is important to fill it, because in the letter that I received, 

you indicate that, ‘‘Hey, we are still doing these things. It hasn’t 

stopped us or slowed us down from doing it.’’

Why hasn’t that attention been given to this? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, let me address it with two points. 

First, this has been the most top priority position since I came 

into office in January, and we have been through a number of candidates, candidates who have withdrawn from the IT industry, who 

found divestment of their businesses unattainable in the timeframes we needed to get them on board. 

We have had individuals that have gone through the security review process and, for a variety of reasons, have not been able to 

continue on. But we feel confident in the candidate that we do 

have. 

Part of this comes down to the fact that one person is absolutely 

critical, but not indispensable anymore than you, Mr. Chairman. If 

your director of constituent services leaves your office, it doesn’t 

mean you quit doing constituent services. 

We have been continuing to move forward with this, but we 

weren’t going to simply hire someone in order to fill the position. 

We wanted to get a top quality candidate, get a top quality individual. 

We believe that we are at that point. We felt like we were at that 

point several times before, but we are much further through the 

process this time. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Powner, based on your work, it appears that 

DHS has not fully addressed any of its 13 key cybersecurity responsibilities. Of the 13 key responsibilities, which, from your review, should be the highest priority for DHS? 

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, within those areas of responsibility, there 

are some core areas that should be focused on. We look at threat 

assessment as being one. Vulnerability assessments and reduction 

activities in that area would be another key one. The third one 

would be bolstering their analytical capability. 

One of the issues in building credibility with the private sector 

is what does the government have that is of value to the private 
36

sector infrastructure owners. And if we had more robust analytical 

capability, where we were ahead of attacks, and I know the department is trying to pursue that with some of their projects, like Einstein and other things that are ongoing. 

But if we offered that to the private sector, they would be more 

willing to participate and share information with the government. 

Mr. LUNGREN. How much, if any, of the reluctance to participate—you say their lack of trust, I think is the word that you 

used—is the result of us not building into our legislation and our 

regulations protections against liability? 

That is, if I am on the outside looking in, the government comes 

to me and says, ‘‘We would like you to share information with us 

with respect to the state of your cybersecurity,’’ you may be reluctant because you may be looking at a lawsuit down the line if you 

are exposed as not having done everything that needs to be done, 

based on analysis done by the department. 

Do you have any sense of that? 

Mr. POWNER. Well, we clearly hear that from some of the infrastructure owners that that is one reason why they do not provide 

any information. 

The second reason is, you know, they provide information, but 

what do they get back in return? If you don’t get something in return, you are less willing to provide that. 

Although I will say, in all fairness to the department, they recently issued a rule which is associated with how critical infrastructure information is shared and there is greater clarity in 

terms of how that information is handled and protected on the government side. 

So that was clearly a step in the right direction that recently occurred. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Foresman, there is criticism, obviously, that 

you have not fully addressed any of the 13 key cybersecurity responsibilities. 

What would you say in response to that, number one? And, number two, how do you prioritize among those 13 in terms of what you 

need to do at the department? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Mr. Chairman, what I would say is we very 

much acknowledge the great work that the Government Accountability Office continues to do on a wide range of fronts and the recommendations that Mr. Powner has brought forward are ones that 

will help us chart the road ahead. 

But to the second piece of it, in terms of prioritization, this is not 

simply unilateral action on the part of the Department of Homeland Security. 

One of the reasons why we have a wide range of constituencies 

involved in this process, public sector and private sector, sector coordinating council, just being one of many examples, as we are 

working through the national infrastructure protection plan in the 

IT sector, is so that we can bring the private sector stakeholders 

to the table with government and in an environment of collaboration to make a mutual determination about where the priorities 

are, because if we in the department were to have a priority that 

was different than, say, the Office of Management and Budget at 

the federal level or the state of New York at the state level or 
37

Microsoft at the corporate level, we are not going to be headed in 

the same direction. 

So this is not the easiest environment in the world, because it 

is not a regulated environment. It shouldn’t be a regulated environment. And we have got to create a mutually shared vision and gain 

a wide range of consensus. 

And, clearly, one of the things that we know is that there are 

market factors that can be brought into play that will incentivize. 

You mentioned liability, just being one of many. 

Mr. LUNGREN. My time, I believe, has expired. When we come 

back, I want to ask you about the three top priorities specifically. 

The gentlelady? 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, gentlemen, for being before us. 

You know, it is not just a lack of this assistant secretary that you 

have been unable to fill for the last year. I mean, the GAO noted, 

in its last report, in 2005, that there were various people who had 

left the department and that there really is no leadership going on. 

And my question is how can you say that because you haven’t 

filled that position, you—I mean, there seems to be no leadership 

in this area. 

In fact, I think your report noted that some of the industry 

groups you had spoken to said that the lack of these positions 

being filled really noted a lack of leadership from that department. 

Is that not true? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, that is true. What we heard from certain infrastructure owners was the lack of leadership was sending a message that it was not an administration priority. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So is it an administration priority? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Ms. Sanchez, it is, in fact, an administration priority. When Secretary Chertoff went through the second stage review and we created this position, we did it in response to a desire 

on the part of the industry and a desire on the part of Congress, 

as well as the federal executive branch, to have greater collaboration and coordination. 

And I acknowledge and I am the first one to acknowledge that 

this has been a tough process to get this position filled. 

And, Congresswoman, I want to say it is not for wont of trying. 

We have been working exceptionally hard and, as you know, the 

department—it is hard to recruit, frankly, because there is great 

criticism of the department on many fronts. 

And many of the folks who have the IT background are making 

very substantial salaries in the private sector and you have to 

make a sacrifice to come into government and it has been difficult 

to find individuals willing to make the sacrifice. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I think a lot of us make a sacrifice to come into 

the government. 

Mr. DICKS. Would you yield just for one question? 

On that very point, do you have an acting assistant secretary? 

We have acting secretaries all over the government. Is there an 

acting assistant secretary? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, there is. And we had Bob Stephan, 

who was our assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, was 

dual hatted, carrying the responsibilities of doing infrastructure 
38

protection, also overseeing the efforts of our cybersecurity and our 

national communications systems activities. 

Recently, we interjected the deputy undersecretary for preparedness, Rob Zitz, who works for me, to provide for the day-to-day 

management and oversight, in collaboration with the national 

cybersecurity division and the national communications system, 

simply because of the fact that we are going through trying to get 

the national infrastructure protection plan done, get all the sector 

coordination plans done. 

And Bob was doing yeoman’s work with both hats on, but we 

have added an additional person in there to help make sure that 

the folks in both of these shops have the tools, the resources and 

the guidance necessary to be successful. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Certainly, Mr. Dicks. 

So you are telling me that he was—did you officially do that? Because we never got word that you did this. You titled him with the 

acting secretary position? 

Mr. FORESMAN. We did not. What I am saying to you is—

Ms. SANCHEZ. You just said you were going to give it all over to 

him to do. 

Mr. FORESMAN. No, ma’am. What we have said is that Mr. Zitz 

has the responsibility for ensuring day-to-day oversight and coordination efforts between the national cybersecurity division, as well 

as the national communications system. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay, I think the question that Mr. Dicks had was 

did you have an acting assistant secretary for cybersecurity and 

telecommunications. 

Mr. FORESMAN. We did and that is Mr. Steffen. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So he is doing both secretary positions. 

Mr. FORESMAN. He is doing both secretary positions. And, Congresswoman, he is on paper today doing the cybersecurity and the 

communications system in the context that Bob was working phenomenal hours, trying to do both jobs, and we added a second person in to provide day-to-day direction and oversight. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Well, this is such an important job. I mean, I can’t 

imagine that someone is going to have a real full-time job and then 

take this job on. 

And you can really sit there with a straight face and tell me that 

he was doing both jobs. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, my—

Ms. SANCHEZ. That is like saying I am a congresswoman and Mr. 

Lungren’s district doesn’t have a congressperson, therefore, I am 

going to be the acting one. I mean, it is two jobs you just can’t do 

together. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, Congresswoman, let me just offer this. In 

the context of providing advice and counsel to the men and women 

of both of these shops, providing strategic direction and leadership, 

we have plenty of folks who are available and are doing that on a 

day-to-day basis. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Did you have a comment? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, if the gentlelady would yield for a second. 

Mr. Foresman, could you tell us when you do anticipate filling 

this position? 
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Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, as you know, the individual who 

will fill this position will have access to some of the most highly 

classified data that is available. They are going through the security clearance process. 

The way I would best characterize it is in terms of where one 

would normally expect them to be in the security clearance review 

process. They are way beyond that point, which shows that we are 

making getting the security clearance done a highest priority. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So is the answer that the only thing holding this 

up is the finalization of the security clearance? 

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I want to talk about compensation for a minute, 

because we had the whole issue of Andy Purdy and being paid from 

different pots. 

Do you think that you have adequate protections in place to deal 

with potential conflicts of interest that arise when the IPA contractors oversee business arrangements between the government and 

their home employer? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, we do, but beyond that step, as 

you know, the department used a large number of IPAs in the 

early days to get the department up and running. 

We made a very deliberate decision and in consultation with the 

secretary and the deputy secretary, when I came on board, we are 

moving as many of the current IPA positions to full-time federal 

employee positions, recognizing that we are transitioning from 

what one would reasonably say is the startup point of the department, where IPAs were a necessity, to the point of where we need 

to convert these to full-time federal employees. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So how many IPAs would you estimate are still 

around? And I am assuming what you are telling me is that you 

are moving them from however many you might have right now to 

a net of zero. 

You don’t really want IPAs hanging around in the department? 

Mr. FORESMAN. No, Congresswoman, I wouldn’t say that we are 

going to do it at a 100 percent. There is going to be a necessity for 

IPAs particularly in selected expertise areas, high science areas. 

But for the vast majority of positions that were IPA before, we 

are taking a very hard look at this and, frankly, we want to make 

sure that we had these as full-time federal employees, not subject 

to the provisions of some of the limitations that, frankly, are placed 

on IPAs, because they don’t fit into that full-time federal employee 

status. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The time of the gentlelady has expired. 

The gentleman from the state of Washington is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, thank you. 

You have got this person that you signed a 2-year contract with, 

Andy Purdy, is that correct? 

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct. 

Mr. DICKS. And 2 years to serve as acting director of the national 

cybersecurity division. 

Mr. FORESMAN. That is correct. 
40

Mr. DICKS. In a time when enduring leadership over the federal 

government’s effort in this arena is vital, why would the department sign a two-year contract that expressly provides for an interim director? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I will have to offer that that occurred before my arrival, but what I will say is that upon my arrival, upon my assumption of the duties and the responsibilities, 

we have looked at our IPA activities and I want to convert these 

over to FTE, full-time federal employee positions, and we are in the 

process of doing that. 

Mr. DICKS. Now, we know that the preparedness directorate also 

uses IPAs, as was mentioned. A recent news article revealed that 

acting NCSD director Andy Purdy receives a $277,000 salary, mostly paid by the department, all while overseeing a multi-million dollar budget for this home institution of Carnegie Mellon. 

Does the preparedness directorate have adequate protections in 

place to deal with potential conflicts of interest? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, as you know, this issue did come 

up in the public, in the press over the course of the last several 

months, and we went and did an exhaustive review of it. 

When Andy came on board, he was subjected to the same ethics 

requirements that the rest of the federal employees are subjected 

to. We have a series of checks and balances. 

We have separate business functions from those who oversee program activities. And we do feel like it was adequate. 

Mr. DICKS. The Cybersecurity Alliance have called for increased 

funding of cybersecurity efforts within the department. Yet, the administration lowered the budget by several hundred thousand dollars this year and the Senate Homeland Appropriations Committee 

recommended a decrease of almost $10 million for the budget request for 2007. 

Why is cybersecurity having such a hard time obtaining proper 

funding from the administration and from the majority party in the 

Senate? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I think I would articulate it like 

this. We shouldn’t measure our success or failure with 

cybersecurity efforts in dollars spent, but rather in the ability to leverage the resources. 

As a for instance, one of the things that the GAO report mentions in terms of the analytical ability—Mr. Chairman, this goes to 

one of your three top priorities—is enhancing our analytical ability. 

Part of that hinges on leveraging better the intelligence community. And I will tell you, Congressman, that as we look across the 

spectrum of things that we are doing on our cybersecurity efforts, 

we are trying to break down the stovepipes inside the department 

so that we don’t have, if you will, two activities doing the same 

function. 

The Secret Service does elements of cyber training. Their 

cybersecurity division is involved in cyber training. And we are 

looking to achieve efficiencies where we can merge activities and 

get more bang for the buck. 

So I would not articulate that dollars spent is a clear indicator 

of whether we are being successful or not with our cybersecurity 

efforts. 
41

Mr. DICKS. Well, Mr. Powner, you are the GAO fellow, right? 

Mr. POWNER. Correct. 

Mr. DICKS. I missed your presentation, but you guys have done 

studies over the last several years and it is still your impression 

that we are not making very much progress in terms of getting this 

area moving forward. 

Mr. POWNER. Well, if you look comprehensively at the whole plan 

for tackling the cyber critical infrastructure protection arena, we 

can go back to 1996, with Presidential Directive 63. We haven’t 

made much progress. 

We put a lot of plans—

Ms. SANCHEZ. May I ask a question related to that? 

Mr. DICKS. Let him finish his answer. Then I will yield to you. 

Mr. POWNER. I mean, we put resources and there are always 

plans in place, but we need to get off of putting plans in place and 

actually get down to implementation. 

We are going to get sector-specific plans, hopefully, at the end of 

the year, that are tied to the national infrastructure protection 

plan. Hopefully, those plans move us beyond another plan, but 

more into vulnerability assessments, efforts to protect our infrastructure, efforts to reduce the vulnerabilities that are out there, 

and, also, to put in place recovery plans. 

We don’t have those things, if you look at—individual companies 

do, yes, but if you look at sector by sector and what is called for 

in law and policy, we do not have those. 

Mr. DICKS. I yield. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Do you think they have a vision? I mean, with nobody at the top really under this and with so many people having 

come in and been cyber czar, as I call them, I think the fifth person 

now. 

I mean, do the people that work in this area and does the department really have a vision about what they are supposed to be doing 

or do you find them struggling? 

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, they are struggling, in aspects. But in 

terms of a vision, there is a national infrastructure protection plan 

that has a lot of the right pieces in place. It calls for the right 

things, to engage the right parties. 

Now, what we need to do is to engage those parties and move 

forward on the implementation phase. So I would say the national 

infrastructure protection plan, a lot of the aspects of that plan are 

pretty good, but now the challenge becomes in implementing it and 

it is tough to implement it when you have this history of not necessarily having the strongest relationship with various sectors in 

the private sector who own the majority of the infrastructure. 

It is a huge challenge. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask you these. We spent a lot of money in the 

Department of Defense looking at cybersecurity from a Defense Department perspective. I serve on Defense Appropriations. Has DHS 

benefited at all from the work that was done at the DOD? 

Mr. POWNER. A couple comments. I think, clearly, we could leverage other aspects of the federal government where we have made 

progress. DOD, if you look at their defense cybersecurity lab, if you 
42

look at their joint task force, they have got many areas that look 

at cyber initiatives. 

And I think the department has acknowledged that trying to link 

up and leverage those aspects within the Department of Defense 

and build a partnership in those areas are needed. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, just one quick, last, brief question. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Sure, go right ahead. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Mr. Foresman, did the DHS ethics officer approve the Purdy arrangement? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I believe he did, but let me confirm that and provide you a written response. 

Mr. DICKS. Get us a response. And if there was a letter written 

at the time, we would like to have that, if that would be all right 

with the chairman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. That would be fine. 

Mr. DICKS. I think we need to be able to see a copy of what was 

sent at the time. 

Does the GAO know anything about that? 

Mr. POWNER. No, sir. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SOUDER. I appreciate your testimony and the unbelievable 

complexity of the challenge. 

I had kind of a side question, but I wonder how it is extending 

the front that you have to defend. 

I know in the GAO testimony, you have about how to protect 

government computers and there is a reference also to the university names that were stolen and others. 

But in the Veterans a Administration, where we, in effect, had 

most of our veterans a, a high percentage of our veterans a names 

appeared to have been stolen in a random burglary, because it 

went home and the computer went home, and, at one point, it 

looked like we might have even compromised home addresses and 

our active servicemen, meaning that they would be vulnerable. 

How does the whole experience of contracting out, not only in the 

government arena, but in the private arena—are you looking at 

how to build—I understand the veterans a department is trying to 

work additional firewalls in. 

How are we going to handle this without, in effect, pulling everything back inside a few walls? This is like making our entire system vulnerable at its weakest link, which is at home. It is vulnerable to random robberies, penetrations of some kid hacker on his 

dad’s computer. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, let me start and maybe Mr. 

Powner may have additional comments. This actually very much 

underscores the complexity of probably among our greatest 

vulnerabilities is not on our networks, as I think some of your next 

panels of witnesses will talk about, but in the context of the computer sitting on the desk at home or in the small business office 

somewhere. 

And, you know, this becomes the same challenge that we have 

when we talk about how do we prepare America for emergencies 
43

and disasters of any kind and part of this comes back to citizen 

education. 

You know, October is national cybersecurity awareness month 

and just as much as we want the average citizen to know that they 

need to check their smoke detector batteries in October, we also 

want our citizens to know that you can at buy the computer, you 

can’t load the software on it, and you can’t say, ‘‘Okay, I am good 

forever on until I get the next computer.’’

And it requires maintenance, it requires work, and this is one of 

the areas where I think strong collaboration between the public 

sector and the private sector, constant messaging is going to be absolutely critical. 

Mr. POWNER. Just to second that, when you look at security as 

a whole, it is only as good as your weakest link. 

We do a lot of work not only looking at cyber critical infrastructure, but looking at individual agencies and departments. We have 

a lab internally that we attempt to break into systems and networks in federal departments and agencies and we are almost always successful. 

But there are simple things, like when you are not successful, we 

will call the Department of Homeland Security and say, ‘‘We are 

working for Mr. Foresman and he forgot his password and can you 

give it to us.’’ And you know what? We usually get it. 

So it is those type of things, too, and it makes it very difficult, 

because you have got this huge technological component that you 

have to secure, but it is also relying on the individuals and the people, too. 

And educating everyone and having that whole picture in place 

is very difficult with many of these departments. 

Mr. SOUDER. Well, thank you for scaring me even more. Mr. 

Chairman, I want to point out, I have blue and gold on. 

Mr. LUNGREN. That is very good. I am just painting my office 

blue and gold, after the victory against Penn State, I guess it was. 

Now it is Michigan, the next one coming up. 

The gentlelady from the great state of Texas is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Well, you know, I am stuck in orange and we 

are struggling, but we are going to make it. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I wasn’t going to say a thing. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. But thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, to 

the ranking member. 

I am going to use a part of my time to try to articulate some of 

the piquing frustration. As I do that, Mr. Foresman, I do want to 

acknowledge that you are a superb professional. We thank you for 

your service. 

We thank Mr. Powner, as well, and the GAO is certainly one of 

our frequent witnesses throughout the Congress. 

But I notice that this room is particularly tranquil and very well 

appointed and would give us a sense of calm. Here is my frustration. 

We are not living in a calm arena. Day to day, we are noting the 

use of technology, levels of sophistication by Al Qaida, certainly the 

new sophisticated creative uses of mere liquids that would create 

havoc in the nations and the world skies, and, of course, as my col-
44

league mentioned, the ludicrous incident or accident of a missing 

laptop and thousands upon thousands of veterans a personal information. 

I just had a hearing yesterday on the National Security Agency 

and, of course, the issues dealing with warrantless searches, which 

speaks to corporations who are now either engaged or not engaged 

in providing data, issues of data mining. 

These are major issues and I guess as I look at this structure 

that you have, I am a little—we call it unready, a great deal of discomfort. 

Mr. Purdy may be a very fine professional himself, but I am listening to Mr. Powner, who said he is completely blank on this arrangement. 

My concern would be attention span and the ability to run a 

multi-conglomerate, whatever responsibility Mr. Purdy has, whether or not he has put it in trust, I am not sure, and this very important responsibility. 

I do hear you saying that there is a process going and someone 

is being embedded as we speak. 

But I think the message I want you to take back to Secretary 

Chertoff, and we had great hopes and dreams for homeland security, we still do, we wouldn’t be here, committed, as you heard, that 

there has to be a certain energy, a certain sense of urgency, a certain sense of panic, that we wouldn’t have to see one area after another be vacant, be with acting or interim. 

And we are all sort of facing those uphill obstacles. You are not 

the personnel director, of course, but I think it is important to note 

that the idea of staffing is crucial. 

So maybe you can give me a sense of who is working under Mr. 

Purdy. What kind of shop do we have there? Vision has never 

been—it is good planning, but it has never been answers to terrorism, because we can visioning for a long time and subject the 

American people to a major, if you will, terrorist attack. 

We are all sort of sitting on edge because we know that just by 

the nature of this heinous business now that is going on the world, 

that we are certainly as vulnerable as the next. We are trying to 

secure this nation, but we have a lot of gaping holes. 

So tell me what staffing you have and what are you practically 

doing as it relates to cybersecurity, because you have got an interim person? 

And, Mr. Powner, in my closing moment, would you then take it 

to the next level of what are the Achilles heels as we are presently 

structured? The interim person, maybe some of your questions not 

being answered, in a world of cybersecurity. 

And I yield to you, Mr. Foresman. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. And 

let me also, to the context of what Congressman Dicks asked about, 

I did get a note from staff and the ethics officer did review the arrangement before Mr. Purdy came on board. So it did go through 

the ethics review process, but we will provide any additional clarity 

that you wish. 

I would generally break four primary functions in the national 

cybersecurity division and some of the most talented men and 

women and very dedicated men and women, and I would invite all 
45

of you all to come out to the U.S. CERT center out in Northern Virginia and see what they do every day to monitor what is going on 

across the Internet, to identify and look for vulnerabilities. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Do you know the numbers of your staff, how 

many are out there? 

Mr. FORESMAN. I can get you an approximate. Congresswoman, 

I don’t know off—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. But is every spot filled? 

Mr. FORESMAN. I believe that they are close, because we are 

making sure vacancies—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. You are making headway. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Minimizing vacancies. But there are four primary buckets. One is kind of the detection and monitoring. That 

is the U.S. CERT folks. That is the operational piece, knowing 

what is going on, having a place that the federal interagency and 

the private sector can reach into 24/7 to be able to do it. 

The second category is those efforts that are targeted towards 

raising education and awareness across the university sector and 

that type of activity. 

The third area is what is traditionally the planning, getting the 

private sector and the public sector folks in the room together and 

making sure that we know how we are going to respond to a 

threat, we know how we are going to respond to an actual event, 

we know how we are going to implement recovery. 

And those are the folks who had the hard time of translating the 

idea for greater cooperation. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. And your team is engaged in information 

sharing. You are part of the component that deals with the information sharing component. I assume that you look at information. 

Are you the gatherers or are you providing information out? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, it is both. It is really both being—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. You are functioning in two ways. You feel confident that you are functioning now with your staff. 

Mr. FORESMAN. We are functioning, but, Congresswoman, I am 

not going to mislead you or this committee. We got our high track 

activity, which is a collaborative activity that is responsible for getting intelligence information out to the private sector and getting 

it back in and feeding it into the intelligence community. 

We have got the work of the U.S. CERT. We have got our national operations center, the national coordination center for telecommunications. They are closer and better tied than they were a 

year ago. They are closer and much better tied than they were 4 

years ago or 3 years ago, when the department was stood up. 

But we still have more work to do and we need to make sure it 

is a seamless operation. One of the things I said earlier in my testimony was we are going to put the telecommunications coordinating 

group that is there 24/7 right next to the information technology, 

the cybersecurity group that is there 24/7, because the telecommunications infrastructure and our information technology infrastructure are inextricably related and we want to make sure 

that those folks are sitting next to each other when things go on 

so that they can share that information back and forth. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, if you will indulge me, so that 

Mr. Powner could respond, please. 
46

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Foresman. 

Mr. POWNER. Congresswoman, clearly, there are—getting at the 

human capital issue within the department there, clearly, there are 

many capable men and women within the national cybersecurity 

division. Many of them are sitting in this room today. We just need 

more of them. 

In terms of leadership, though, there is a leadership void. We 

need a permanent leader not only for the department internally, 

but because of the interaction with the private sector, the state and 

local governments. 

So we clearly need that. This isn’t the only department that has 

struggled with getting capable folks on board. I do work in many 

areas across the federal government. IRS is an example. 

They had a huge human capital issue there, not being able to deliver. I can say today, looking at them over a number of years, they 

have one of the better IT organizations when it comes to their modernization efforts. 

They still have hiccups, but how did they do that? They got critical position pay, where they paid folks above the SES salary cap. 

So there are things you could do and you could pursue. 

It is not perfect, because it is still difficult to compete with the 

private sector salaries, but there are things you could do and you 

could pursue and there are some good examples out there in other 

federal departments that we could move forward on. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you. 

To you, Mr. Chairman, I would just say those of us who live beyond the beltway, I would really like to give an SOS e-mail to our 

friends here in Washington to start going out and recruiting across 

the country, whether it is Texas or California or Washington state. 

We have got to be able to find good people and good people are 

out there and there must be some recruiting blindness, but we 

need to start reaching out to our own constituents, because they 

are out there and they know this business. 

And I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentlelady. We will do a second round 

with this panel before we go to the second panel. 

Mr. Foresman, you were going to tell me what the three top priorities are regarding cybersecurity responsibilities? You gave us 

one, which is enhancing analytical abilities. 

What would the other two be? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, clearly, it is the ability to effect 

the coordination between the agencies of the federal government 

with our state and local partners and between government and the 

private sector, just the basic operational coordination. 

And then the second one is information sharing. As Mr. Powner 

pointed out, there has got to be a tangible benefit to the private 

sector and this is not just limited to the information technology sector. This is across all of our critical, whether we are talking about 

ports in transportation systems or our IT systems. 

What is the value added for the private sector to share information with government and, conversely, government has got to—it 

has got to be a two-way street. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I mean, part of this hearing is, obviously, beating 

up on you, because the department hasn’t done as much as it needs 
47

to do in this area. But, look, I am going to confess, the Congress 

hasn’t either. 

If there is one area that we probably lag behind in terms of the 

array of vulnerabilities we have, in my judgment, more than anything else, it is probably cybersecurity. 

But we will keep sending these letters to you and we will still 

keep prodding you to do these things. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, didn’t we have national commission 

on cybersecurity? That, I thought, did an outstanding effort. I 

mean, this issue has been out there. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I am not saying the issue hasn’t been out there. 

What I am suggesting is, I mean, as I look at the Congress, I am 

not sure that we have done what we need to do. 

Mr. DICKS. In terms of oversight? 

Mr. LUNGREN. In terms of oversight, in terms of prodding the department. I just want to let you know we are going to be doing a 

much stronger job on that. We are going to be inviting you to come 

up here more often. 

We are going to be sending letters out. We are going to make inquiries. We need to get moving on this. 

This is not as visible as a physical piece of critical infrastructure, 

yet it is as important, if not more important, because it is embedded in and underlies so much of what we do. 

And in that regard, I would ask you about the SCADA systems, 

the control systems that we have. They are so critical, as they provide a link between the cyber world and the physical world. These 

need to be a top priority. 

Does the department have a specific plan to work with various 

critical infrastructure sectors to protect their control systems, to actually get it done? As Mr. Powner said, we have done a lot of studies, a lot of planning. 

Are we actually doing it? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, three quick points on that. First, 

we are looking, as we are doing all of the sector plans, whether it 

is the chemical sector or the dam sector, all of these other ones 

that have SCADA systems that we are concerned about. 

We have got a cyber component that is built in as they go about 

doing their sector coordination. The sector coordinating councils develop their sector-specific plans and then part of this is having 

them say what is the best practice, what is the acceptable standard 

that we are promoting and pushing within a particular sector and 

having that implemented. 

The second piece is training and education and I think you and 

this committee undoubtedly understand the SCADA issues as well 

as any group out there and there is a growing need to educate. 

As a matter of fact, here at the end of the month, there is a session that we are going to be teaching out in Las Vegas in conjunction with a conference, where we are going to focus exclusively on 

the SCADA issues and protection and prevention measures associated with it. 

And then the third part of it is there is a business issue here. 

You know, if you think about SCADA systems, the control systems 

back pre–a92–a93, when we saw the major proliferation of informa-
48

tion technology, the older systems tend not to be as reliant on the 

Internet as those that are built into the current systems. 

And a lot of this is we have to make the business case to corporate America that protection of their SCADA systems goes back 

to what you talked about earlier, the liability issue. What is the acceptable national standard by which someone will be judged as it 

relates to the protection of SCADA systems? 

And, frankly, I think that market-driven incentives rather than 

overt, heavy-handed regulation is going to get us there, but there 

is a liability issue for corporate America and we need to make sure 

that we articulate that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And one of the things we have to do, from our 

standpoint, working with your department, is to ensure that we 

know that the landscape is out there. How can we get the information from the various sectors dealing with their own cybersecurity? 

How are we going to develop the trust such that they will give 

us that information, so that we can utilize it, so that we can make 

a better judgment here in the Congress as to what makes sense 

from a legislative standpoint as opposed to what makes sense from 

a regulatory standpoint as opposed to what makes sense from an 

incentive standpoint as opposed to what makes sense from the risk 

management experts, which is the insurance industry? 

If we don’t have that information, we may be heavy-handed on 

the regulatory side or the statutory side only because we don’t have 

that information. 

So we have to build a relationship of trust with the private sector 

so that they will feel free to share that information with us, feel 

free to share it with you. 

That is not an easy thing to do, even with the question of liability. But beyond that, do they trust us to have the competence to 

be able to deal with the information they give us? 

So I am looking at this not to point fingers at people. I am looking at this to solve a problem. And when we are given the responsibility in this committee and this subcommittee of dealing with critical infrastructure, it seems to me, if we don’t look at cybersecurity 

as a part of that, we are not doing our job. 

And we are like a non-modern governmental entity trying to deal 

with a modern world. It just isn’t going to work. 

So we will be pressing and working hard and we will do this on 

a bipartisan basis, because I know the concern is shared by both 

Democrats and Republicans. 

All right, if I can get this working again, I will start it off for 

another 5 minutes for my ranking member, the gentlelady from 

California. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say that 

one of the reasons that we may have not been paying as much attention lately to cybersecurity is, as you will recall, when we first 

started the Homeland Security Committee, we had an actual subcommittee that dealt with cybersecurity. 

And then the reorg that happened in the last 2 years, this was 

put under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, which, as you 

know, has an extensive portfolio and trying to get through TSA and 

ports and everything else. 
49

I guess this may be the second hearing that we have had on 

cybersecurity in the 2 years. 

So it is important to get done. I just don’t know how we also will 

find the time. It is always a difficult thing to do. 

And there are some good things that have come out of the directorate. As you know, when we have been in the markup sessions, 

I have tried to put more money into some of the programs that I 

think have been done well. 

So for me, it is more of understanding that we have had this revolving door at the top and the frustration of not being able to fill 

it and the idea of the people, the rest of the people in the agency 

having less direction than they probably need to get things done. 

So that is why we are so, I think, concerned to see this issue of 

filling the slots with competent people who want to stay around, 

which we see in a lot of the different areas of homeland security. 

It is a major problem. And the morale issues and the pay issues 

and everything that go with it. 

And just, you know, developing something new, it takes a special 

kind of person. A lot of people can follow, but it is hard to lead. 

So we really need to fill those leadership positions. 

The GAO said that progress to date on initiatives to improve the 

nation’s ability to recover from Internet disruption, that the 

progress had been limited and that other initiatives lacked timeframes for completion, and, also, that the relationships between 

these initiatives are not evident. 

Can you tell me what efforts must be made by the department 

to achieve the kinds of relationships that need to exist for these initiatives to work? Again, the ones that deal with working groups to 

facilitate coordination and exercises in which government and the 

private industry practice respond to cyber events. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congresswoman, I think there are three really 

big issues here. One is clear deliverable timelines and I will tell 

you, this is an issue—you noted correctly that the department continues to go through growing pains, but we have gotten through 

that first visceral reaction of getting the department up and running. 

And we do need to take a collective deep breath and look at all 

of the things that we are doing and make sure and make sure what 

we are doing is still what we need to be doing this time next week, 

but that we are putting specific deliverable timelines on these. 

And I think part of this, and I talked to Mr. Powner ahead of 

time, when we get the new assistant secretary on board, I would 

like to sit down with the GAO and amalgamate all of the recommendations across the cyber front and develop a matrix. 

I am not going to say we are going to do them all, but there is 

a lot of great work that has gone in there. There is a lot of great 

work that is coming out of the sector coordinating councils. 

One of the advantages is we are working with the business sector. They don’t do well if we don’t have clear, definitive end products that we are looking for and timelines. So they are helping to 

push us. That is the first thing. 

The second piece of it really comes down to the issue of trust that 

we have talked about. And I want to be clear, when we talk about 

trust, these types of public-private sector relationships, even going 
50

back to PDD–63 in the 1990s timeframe, and 67, this is new. Government has always been a regulator and private sector has always 

been a regulatee. 

So we are talking about new relationships here. The PCII rule, 

the protecting critical infrastructure information, the tool that this 

Congress gave to the department, a very important tool, we have 

taken, we have implemented just here in the last several months, 

and it provides an additional layer of competence to the private 

sector that key information that they provide to us is not going to 

end up out in the public domain, particularly where we are talking 

about proprietary information, because you know one bad piece of 

information affects stock prices and we understand that. 

So I am anxious to see how the PCII rule, married together with 

our ongoing relationships, provides tangible benefits as we go forward. 

And then the third piece of it is I think it is going to come back 

to as we define and continue to work with Congress on this issue, 

we have got a national strategy on securing cyberspace. That is the 

high level document. 

As Mr. Powner said, we have got the national infrastructure protection plan, the next level down. We have got the sector coordination plans that are being put—the sector-specific plans that are 

being put together. 

But we have got to get down into the implementation level and 

that is what normally would come next in the cycle. That is what 

is normally going to come next in the cycle, but I will tell you I 

don’t want to be up here 6 months from now telling you all we 

haven’t made progress. 

I would like to be able to appear before this subcommittee and 

say here are the 15 or 20 things—or, actually, I would like to have 

the assistant secretary appear before you all and say here are the 

15 or 20 things that have gotten done in the last 6 months and, 

by the way, here are the 15 or 20 things that the private sector 

agrees with us that we are going to do in the next 6 months. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Powner, do you have anything you might want 

to enlighten us on that? 

Mr. POWNER. Just one comment about the whole trust issue. 

There is a lot of discussion about building trust and I think naming 

the secretary position, that will be great going forward. 

But we don’t build trust through individuals or because we are 

competent or a good person in this position. You are going to build 

trust with the private sector because the government is going to 

have something that is of value to them. 

And right now we need to grow the capability in the government 

to offer something that is of value. That is ultimately how you are 

going to build trust. 

I have spent some time in the telecommunications sector and, I 

will tell you, when I was there, we didn’t share a lot with the government, because the ultimate question was what benefit is that to 

our company. 

If we are interested in stock prices, when we have someone we 

wanted prosecuted because they were in our central office, that is 

when we wanted the government assistance, because they could 

help us. 
51

He key question is building trust. I think we go back to that analytical capability and some of the key items that are called for, 

called for in policy and in law. If we start tackling some of those 

key priorities, we can build trust. 

It is difficult, but I think there are some things that are in place 

that we can march forward with. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. 

The gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SOUDER. First, I wanted to say something about the 

Cybersecurity Subcommittee here. That is, first, I want to thank 

the speaker for giving us any flexibility at all to do cybersecurity. 

The Energy and Commerce Committee has been trying to muscle 

this committee and we need to push back. In every session of Congress, we need to work to make sure jurisdiction for homeland security stays under this committee. 

It is a wonder that we have had any jurisdiction, given how hard 

they went after our committee on that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. If the gentleman would yield on that. 

One of the points I have been trying to make is if cybersecurity 

is not part and parcel of critical infrastructure, I don’t know what 

is. And I didn’t come back here to have fights with other committees, but we need to do our job and we cannot do our job in terms 

of critical infrastructure protection if we do not involve ourselves 

in an major way in terms of cybersecurity. 

Mr. SOUDER. There are members of Congress in both political 

parties that would love to see the death of this committee and we 

need to fight. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Will the gentleman yield for one second? 

When I was talking about the history of this, what I meant is 

it is so critical. I mean, it warranted its own subcommittee before. 

It is very important. 

Mr. SOUDER. Because my concern was that we weren’t going to 

have any jurisdiction whatsoever, because that was why we initially eliminated the cybersecurity, because we had that. 

Energy and Commerce tried to make a move to exclude us from 

having any jurisdiction and the chairman and the committee and 

the subcommittee chairman here has put some cybersecurity in, because we are all in agreement here what we need to do is make 

sure that this committee—because if you don’t have cybersecurity, 

everything else falls apart. 

As the chairman just said, we are acting like we are in the dark 

ages here. This is where they are talking the stories that you have 

in here on the worms and what can happen at nuclear power 

plants, what happens if our electrical grid shuts down, the internal 

security of the United States. 

There are lots of things that people just assume are protected. 

I felt the most scaring, eye-opening hearing—it wasn’t a hearing—

a briefing that I had was with the cybersecurity subcommittee 

under this, when we first created homeland security, and we had 

the guy who had originally been the attacker of our systems and 

now the defender of our Defense Department systems. 

I just can’t see anything other than that repeated, firewalls with 

incredible strength to feel off different parts, we are never going to 
52

be able to protect everything, is, in my book, the number one thing 

that has to be done. 

How that can be done on the Internet, surely, we have to have 

the ability to cut this off, much like if the bird flu hits, how you 

are going to have to do segmentation of society like we did in 1916 

with the flu epidemic. 

You have to be able to isolate this stuff more rapidly than we are 

doing. 

But I had a couple other particular questions. I would be interested if you agree that that is the biggest challenge, is how to wall 

it off when we get hit. 

But one is clearly staffing and you are competing in an industry 

that pays incredible amounts of money, trying to keep people long 

term, divest stocks that they have, it is a huge challenge. 

Have you been looking at innovative payroll type things, that if 

somebody stays a period longer, they get a bonus? In other words, 

tier the pay somewhat on how long they are there. 

Should we be looking at personnel things that change? Because 

this is not a typical department. And I don’t see, in the future, that 

there is going to be less demand for people with high skill 

cybersecurity and we don’t want to have basically the people who 

couldn’t quite cut it out in the rating field trying to defend us from 

the people who want to attack us, because there is incredible 

amounts of money to be made by attacking a system. 

And a second part of this is that as I was alluding to earlier and 

you correctly said, the weakest part of the system is our vulnerability. 

As we look at contracting out, as companies diversify and you 

have all these different modes of operation, are we looking at requiring different security systems for the level of the vulnerability 

of the site that you are at and putting in requirements and penalties if you fail to do that? 

In other words, yes, we need cooperation. I am a free market 

businessperson who wants to see cooperation. But there are certain 

things that the society assumes are happening. 

And the question is how do we put in certain safeguards, because 

now it isn’t just your business, you can endanger everybody in the 

United States because you got sloppy. 

What are we doing in putting in standards that if you are going 

to have access that can get you into one of these networks, particularly if we are a little uncertain of our wall, to do that? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, let me maybe give three points, 

and I don’t know whether Mr. Powner might want to add something, as well. 

But I would also suggest that your next panel, I think, could address that same question and give some good clarity to it. 

The first part, in terms of filling this position, I have looked at 

every innovative human resource opportunity that we can and 

there is nobody in the city of Washington who wants this position 

filled more than the undersecretary for preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security, for a whole bunch of reasons. 

But to one of the things that Congresswoman Sanchez said, we 

made it very clear that whoever was going to sign up with this was 
53

going to sign up for the long term, because we didn’t need a revolving door and that would have been the worst thing for industry. 

So we put some strong parameters on it. Please come serve the 

nation and, oh, by the way, you have got to be here for the long 

haul, and that did scare some people off, in addition to the things 

you have mentioned. 

But we are restricted by law in certain categories, but we have 

tried to be innovative. 

To the second point, I think I would very much offer to you that 

industry has shown tremendous progress at developing, if you will, 

acceptable standards and practices, but they are not universally 

adopted across all industries. 

So part of this is going to be the ongoing dialogue and discussion 

with the private sector about how do we get universal compliance. 

Is it going to be through market-driven incentives, through insurance? Is it going to be through regulation? 

We don’t know the answer to that, but I will offer to you that 

I have met very few folks in the technology community that don’t 

understand the vulnerabilities. But as one person said at a session 

this morning, you have got to compare the bottom line and the 

needs of the moment. 

And these are tough decisions and I think we may need to provide some structural policy incentives to make it all happen, but 

ultimately, the same that we develop the Internet through innovation, we probably need to develop increased security through innovation. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from Washington is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to go back to this question about Andy Purdy. As we understand, as I said, he earns $245,000, roughly, a year. The secretary of homeland security makes $175,000, but he is also on loan 

from the school to the government, which is paying nearly all his 

salary. Is that correct? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I will need to go back and—

Mr. DICKS. He is here today. He is here in the audience. 

Mr. FORESMAN. I understand that. But in terms of the contractual relationship, I would like to provide you a written response to 

that so that we are very clear. 

But on the first part of it, let me also acknowledge that when we 

talk about compensation packages, we have to remember that what 

my base salary is in the federal government, on top of it, there is 

a 33–34 percent package on top of it. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Mr. FORESMAN. So I think part of it is looking at this in terms 

of the total compensation, but I am more than happy to provide a 

detailed written response to you. 

Mr. DICKS. Now, as of January 2006, the national cybersecurity 

division had 27 government employees out of 40 full-time equivalent positions assigned. These 27 employees make up only 27 percent of the total workforce, with the remaining 73 percent being 

provided through contracts with one or more of 10 different private 

sector organizations, such as Booz Allen Hamilton and SRA International, Inc. 
54

In addition, NCSD has contracts with Carnegie Mellon University totaling $19 million, which is one-fifth of the unit’s total budget. 

Now, that appears to me to be a very questionable practice. How 

can you have a person who is running the division and being paid 

by Carnegie Mellon also giving contracts to them of $19 million? 

I don’t understand that. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, three points on that. First, when 

I assumed this position in January, we did have a large number 

of unfilled positions, as well as a lot of contractors, IPAs and contract support. 

We made a very deliberate policy decision in the department. 

That was the way to get the department up and running back 

when Congress created it. 

But as we move forward, we are trying to transition as many positions as possible into full-time federal employee positions. That 

process continues to take time, but we have made hiring and filling 

vacant positions and transitioning as many from contract status to 

permanent status a priority. 

In terms of Mr. Purdy and the relationship with Carnegie Mellon, we do have checks and balances in place. His ability to obligate 

funds is not sole and exclusive in the context of not having checks 

and balances. 

And, in fact, what I will—

Mr. DICKS. What are the checks and balances? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, there are a variety of checks and balances. 

You have to go through the business review process, through a procurement process. 

And what I would like to do is describe those for you and for the 

committee in exact detail, because, Congressman, if I attempted to 

do it, I am going to miss an important part and that is going to 

create an incorrect picture and I want to paint the correct picture 

of what—

Mr. DICKS. Well, the picture isn’t real pretty, as far as I am concerned. This doesn’t look right to me. 

Has he recused himself from making any decisions about Carnegie Mellon? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, I believe in the context of his ethics agreement, he is, but, again, let me—

Mr. DICKS. He is right here. Why can’t you let him testify? 

Mr. FORESMAN. But, Congressman, he is not the witness and 

what I would prefer to do is to make sure that we get you a factual 

and accurate answer, please. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman is here 

in the audience, I think we ought to have him testify. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, the problem is he was not requested to testify. We did not notify that he was going to be asked to testify. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, the administration’s witnesses bring up people 

with them all the time, in all the hearings I have ever been in. If 

the person is there and can answer the question, I think the question ought to be answered. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I don’t want to avoid this, but that is not the procedure we follow in this subcommittee. We notice people. They are 
55

given an opportunity to know they are going to testify and if it is 

appropriate—

Mr. DICKS. How long is it going to take to get an answer to this 

question? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Foresman, could you get an answer to us in 

written form within the week? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Yes, sir. Well, what day of the week is it, Congressman, Wednesday? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Yes. 

Mr. FORESMAN. I think Friday is reasonable, yes, sir. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And we will make that a part of the record, as 

well. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. DICKS. I yield. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I don’t think it is going to be very difficult. I mean, 

this issue has been in the newspaper for about 6 months, almost 

day in and out in some of them. And I would imagine, Mr. Secretary, that you have this all written out already, because you have 

probably had to explain this over and over. 

It is just that our committee hasn’t really gotten the real explanation. 

Mr. FORESMAN. Well, Congresswoman, I want to make sure that 

this committee, in terms of your oversight and responsibilities for 

our department and this particular area, that you get the information you need to do the job that you need to do. 

So we will put posthaste on this when we get back to our offices 

today. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So we will get that by Friday and we will make 

it a part of the record. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The gentleman’s time—

Mr. DICKS. Well, let me just ask one final question. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The only thing I just want to mention is Mr. 

Pearce hasn’t asked any questions yet and we have a second panel 

coming up. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay, that is fine. Thank you. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. 

Mr. Pearce is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Powner, over the course of time, GAO has issued you all 

some findings, recommendations to strengthen your ability to implement the cybersecurity and I just wonder which of the recommendations are considered a priority and where we stand on implementing those. 

Mr. POWNER. My written statement today lays out recommendations in five broad areas and there are 25 specific recommendations 

in that statement. I would say the priority areas are in four key 

areas, threat assessments, vulnerability assessments and reduction 

efforts, bolstering analysis and warning capabilities, and putting in 

place recovery plans. 

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Foresman, the business roundtable report 

issued suggested that too many organizations, both public and private, had overlapping responsibilities in managing the Internet reconstitution. 
56

Do you have any comment about their comment? 

Mr. FORESMAN. Congressman, one of the first meetings I took 

when I became the undersecretary was 2 or 3 days after I arrived 

in Washington on the job, was to sit down with the business roundtable and specifically to talk through a number of these issues. 

You know, it is hard for any of us to assess whether there are 

too many or too few, but I think the one thing that is clear from 

the GAO report, one thing that is clear from our Cyberstorm exercise is we need to have clarity and coordination, increased clarity 

and increased coordination of roles and responsibilities. 

We are far better than we were a year ago. There is still more 

work to be done. But, you know, I wouldn’t assess whether we need 

more or fewer, but believe they need to be well coordinated. 

Mr. PEARCE. Now, as I listened to Mr. Powner discuss the threat 

and vulnerability assessments, I wonder where we stand on accomplishing those. 

Mr. FORESMAN. That is, Congressman, actually one of the things 

that will come out of the work of the sector coordinating council in 

developing the IT sector-specific plan, as we will do across all of the 

sectors. 

Part of that will be the engagement of the public sector, the private sector, leveraging a wide array of U.S. government resources 

to do that vulnerability assessment, so that we understand what is 

it that we are trying to protect and how do we prioritize towards 

doing that. 

And to that end, one thing I will just mention, Mr. Chairman, 

it may be worthwhile in the early part of January for us to come 

up and brief you on what is, in fact, in those sectors, what each 

of the sectors have come up with. 

And the vulnerability analysis on the IT sector is one that I’m 

most anxious to receive. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see my time is about 

expired. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Does the gentlelady from Texas wish to participate in the second round? 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

I think I want to go back to my point of frustration, because we 

face daily challenges. And I want to ask or at least emphasize why 

I use the term frustration. It is because we have noted over the last 

couple of weeks the administration, and I will yield to their higher 

moral responsibility which has caused them to utilizes the extensive media that they have done, meaning the president has been 

making speeches almost every day, every other day, on the war on 

terror, which means that, I guess, there is a sense of urgency. 

Of his public pronouncements, I don’t see the equating of those 

public pronouncements with the agency that has the responsibility 

to carry forth those policies. So I find that particularly frustrating. 

And I want to go to Mr. Powner. And you went rather quickly, 

excuse me for being redundant in asking the question, but I would 

like to hear those four points again. That was asked by the distinguished gentleman from New Mexico. 

Then I would like you to categorize where we are, because those 

points that you enumerated were the key element of our line of 

homeland security defense, whether we are dealing with 
57

cybersecurity or we are talking about border patrol or protecting 

the borders. 

And you have made, I guess, a limited assessment, but let me 

hear those again and, if you would, walk us through, so that we 

are awake, where we are in that, because that is my—again, I am 

using this word frustration—the urgency of getting this department back—not back, but on its feet in numerous areas, and we 

are now talking about cybersecurity, infrastructure of that. 

And any number of incidences over the last couple of weeks show 

us that that is crucial. That is crucial. 

Again, you gave us four points. Could you just—

Mr. POWNER. And, clearly, there are multiple ways to prioritize 

and I make these four comments because this is really the heart 

and soul of information security, whether it is our critical infrastructure or federal agencies or private sector organization security. But it starts with threat, understanding the threat. 

Clearly, there has been a lot of work on threat. We have the U.S. 

CERT and there are many aspects within the department that 

work on threats. So it is not devoid of threat information. I think 

Mr. Foresman mentioned the threat needs to be bolstered through 

greater intelligence information. That is one area that could greatly 

be improved. 

I think when you look at the requirement, it calls for a national 

threat assessment. I don’t think we have seen that yet. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. No, we have been talking about that for 3 

years. But I will let you skip on. I got the gist of that one. 

Mr. POWNER. So that is threat. The second one is vulnerability 

assessments. Mr. Foresman referred to the sector-specific plans 

that come out. 

I would imagine that some of those plans may get at vulnerability assessments. Some of those plans likely may call for vulnerability assessments. Hopefully, we get vulnerability assessments 

within those plans at the end of the year. 

The third area is looking at analysis and warning capability. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Analysis. 

Mr. POWNER. And warning capability. And this is a point that I 

mentioned earlier, where the U.S. CERT, there is certain analysis 

and warning capability that currently exists, where we provide information on—more of it is after-the-fact type of vulnerabilities and 

incidents. 

We need to get more on the front end with our analytical capabilities, where we get precursors to attacks. And I think the department acknowledges that and is working on that. 

The fourth area then is recovery plans. We just completed a large 

review focusing on this, not only do the individual sectors need a 

recovery plan, and that is called for, but if you take the Internet, 

an Internet recovery plan is called for in national policy. 

That doesn’t exist to date. That is very important that we work 

in the government with the private sector in recovering the Internet, if, in fact, there is a large-scale outage. And I think some of 

those lessons learned from Katrina and 9/11 really drove that 

home. 
58

Now, that wasn’t a cyber event, but in terms of the partnering 

and working together to restore some things, there were many lessons learned from that. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Many lessons, many lessons. Mr. Chairman, I 

would, in conclusion—thank you very much, Mr. Powner—say that 

it is time for Secretary Chertoff to come again before this committee, the full committee, because I think there are some large 

vulnerabilities. 

The idea that a threat assessment still may not be complete is 

one that I think should disturb this committee, Republicans and 

Democrats alike. 

So I thank you, Mr. Powner and Mr. Foresman, for your testimony and your service. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentlelady. And I want to thank both 

witnesses for their testimony and responses to our questions. 

Mr. Foresman, I know you are a busy individual, but perhaps 

you or some members of your staff could stay around to listen to 

what the other panel has to say, as we try to build that trust further. 

Again, thank both of you for appearing. We appreciate it. 

The chair would not like to call the second panel. Mr. William 

Pelgrin, Mr. Paul Kurtz, Mr. Guy Copeland, Mr. David Barron. 

We have someone to the rescue who is going to try and bring the 

heat down a little bit here. 

I thank the four of you for being with us. I introduced the individuals briefly beforehand and we would now ask the panel, again, 

gentlemen, your prepared testimony will be made a part of the 

record in its entirety, and we would ask you to please summarize 

your testimony. 

And we will go from my left to right or your right to left, starting 

with Mr. William Pelgrin, director of the New York State Office of 

Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Coordination. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM PELGRIN, DIRECTOR, NEW YORK 

STATE OFFICE OF CYBER SECURITY AND CRITICAL 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

Mr. PELGRIN. Good afternoon, Chairman Lungren, Ranking 

Member Sanchez, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

I am William Pelgrin, the director of New York State’s Office of 

Cybersecurity and chair of the multi-state Information Sharing and 

Analysis Center. 

I am honored to represent New York state and the multi-state 

ISAC to discuss our efforts to be more vigilant, prepared and resilient regarding cybersecurity. 

Two days ago, we marked the fifth anniversary of the tragic 

event of September 11. Since 2001, much has been implemented to 

improve our nation’s security posture. I am very proud of what has 

been accomplished in cybersecurity at both the New York state and 

multi-state levels. 

Our achievements could not have been done without the support 

at the highest levels. In New York, Governor Pataki has been a 

true champion on these issues. And I would also like to thank Undersecretary Foresman. His leadership and support of our efforts 
59

are very much appreciated. It has been a great partnership with 

DHS and one that I believe has made a difference. 

But we cannot be complacent. We need to stay one step ahead 

of those who wish to do us harm. More than ever, we must continue to make significant progress in our fight against cyber 

threats. 

It is critical that we learn from the past in order to improve the 

future. It is not about how good we are, but about how good we can 

be. Cybersecurity is more about the management of technology. 

The best technology in the world, if it is not managed properly, can 

leave us vulnerable. 

Our successes have been driven by the following guiding principles. It is not about one person or entity, it is about the collective 

effort. It can’t be territorial. We have got to work together across 

sectors and geographic boundaries. 

Trust must be earned. It is not a right. We have worked hard 

to earn trust. The culture must change. Implementing sound 

cybersecurity practices must be as second nature as buckling a 

seatbelt. This can only be done through education and awareness. 

We must be deliverable oriented. The time to talk is over. It is 

the time to do. 

My approach has been threefold. First, we wanted to make sure 

that New York state is strategically aligned to meet the emerging 

threats. My office was created in order to have an entity with a single focus, dedicated to addressing the highly specialized need of 

cybersecurity, one that wouldn’t be diverted to other competing priorities. 

Second, we recognized early on that we could not do this alone. 

So we focus on developing strong collaboration with others, true 

partnerships. We established the New York state public-private 

cybersecurity workgroup in 2002 to foster sharing across sector borders and to build important trust relationships. 

The workgroup comprises high level executives from the public 

and private sectors, representing critical industries, including telecommunications, financial, utilities, chemical, health and food. 

Third, we recognize that the traditional geographic borders are 

irrelevant when dealing with cybersecurity issues. So there was a 

need for strong partnerships with other states and local governments across the nation, as well as with our federal and international partners. 

The multi-state ISAC was created in 2003 and I am pleased to 

say that all 50 states and D.C. are members. The mission of the 

MSISAC, consistent with the objectives of the national strategy to 

secure cyberspace, is to provide a common mechanism for raising 

the level of cybersecurity readiness and response in each state and 

with local governments. 

This volunteering and collaborative effort provides a central resource for gathering information on cyber threats and events, providing two-way sharing of information between and among states, 

and with local governments, as well as with the federal government. 

A key component of the MSISAC is our 7-by–24 cybersecurity 

center. This center provides cybersecurity monitoring for analysis 
60

of intrusions and other anomalous cyber activities for all the members of the multi-state ISAC. 

The center works very closely with U.S. CERT, other cyber researchers, security vendors, and the ISPs. In addition, we have deployed equipment that provides real-time monitoring of network 

traffic, specifically to two states, one in New York and, most recently, Alaska. 

Many other states and local governments have expressed an interest in being part of this service. The concept is that the collective view is more valuable and informative than a singular view. 

Another key initiative is our cybersecurity alert map, which allows each state to identify and display its current cybersecurity 

status and contact information. I am pleased that all 50 states and 

D.C. have adopted this common cyber alert protocol. 

What a tremendous step forward in facilitating information sharing than situational awareness. 

We have a number of other initiatives focused on helping local 

governments address cybersecurity. They are facing the same 

issues that the states are. However, many of them don’t have the 

necessary resources or expertise for the cyber challenges that they 

face. 

For example, when we issued a cybersecurity advisory recommending patching vulnerable systems, I received a call from a town 

supervisor, telling me, ‘‘Will, I don’t understand what you mean by 

patching. When I hear the word, I look for duct tape.’’

To aid local governments, we have established a local government cybersecurity committee, with representatives from towns, 

counties, cities, schools and state governments. The committee has 

developed a roadmap for addressing the cybersecurity needs of local 

governments. 

In partnership with DHS, we have completed our first major deliverable, the first national cybersecurity guide for localities. It is 

called ‘‘Just Get Started,’’ and I do have copies for the chairman 

and members of the committee, as well. 

The goal of the guide was to keep it short, easy to read, like a 

magazine, that there would be periodic installments. 

In closing, I have briefly highlighted for you some of our major 

accomplishments. The key guiding principle that has been instrumental in these efforts is collaboration. We must ensure that all 

stakeholders are at the table. We also need to realize that you can’t 

get from A to Z overnight. You have to prioritize and move strategically. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and thank you, 

Chairman Lungren and the members of the subcommittee, for your 

strong leadership and attention to this important matter of 

cybersecurity. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Pelgrin follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM F. PELGRIN

Good Afternoon Chairman Lungren, Ranking Member Sanchez, and distinguished 

Members of the Subcommittee on Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and 

Cyber Security. I am William Pelgrin, the Director of New York State Office of 

Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination and Chair of the MultiState Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Multi-State ISAC). 
61

I am honored to represent New York State and the Multi-State ISAC to discuss 

the challenges, successes and lessons learned in our efforts to address cyber security. 

It is time for plain speaking—we must be open to sharing information. We must 

learn from the past to improve the future. Cyber security must be everyone’s responsibility. I have adopted this mantra as a call to action. 

Two days ago, we commemorated the 5th anniversary of the tragic events of September 11. Since 2001, much has been implemented to improve our nation’s security 

posture. I am very proud of what has been accomplished in cyber security at both 

the New York State and Multi-State levels to assist in this effort to be more vigilant, prepared and resilient. But we cannot be complacent; we still have a long way 

to go.

Why We Must Be So Concerned? • Cyber terrorism or human error can both have devastating consequences; • Cyber attacks can originate from anywhere; • The technology to launch such cyber attacks is relatively inexpensive and 

widely available; and 

• Sophisticated computer expertise is no longer necessary to launch attacks. 

My testimony today will describe our approach to address these issues and how 

we are working to improve the cyber security posture not only of New York State 

but of all the states and local governments in our nation. This could not have been 

done without the strong leadership of Governor Pataki, who has been a true champion of these issues. 

Since it is the start that stops most of us, we took the approach of ‘‘let’s just get 

started’’ using the ‘‘build it as you go’’ and ‘‘best effort’’ rules to move forward as 

quickly as possible. 

The time to talk is over—it is the time for action. 

For many it is very difficult to fully grasp the cyber challenges and threats that 

we face today. My method is to make it real and tangible in order to provide clarity 

and understanding of these issues. 

None of us is as smart as all of us. Therefore, collaboration, cooperation and communication are the cornerstones of our approach. We can’t do this alone. Our partnership with U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been a positive example 

of what can be accomplished when we truly work together toward a common goal. 

Cyber security is more about management than technology. The best technology 

in the world, if not managed properly, with appropriate policies and procedures, will 

leave us vulnerable. We all must become champions for good cyber security practices 

and set an example for others to follow. 

I would like to start off by describing my philosophy. I believe these guiding principles are major factors for our successes in New York, as well as with the MultiState. 

• First and foremost, it is not about one person or entity; it is about the collective effort. 

• It is about moving in a common direction. 

• Trust must be earned; it is not a right. We work hard to earn that trust. 

• We have a willingness to share as much as possible without concern for what 

would or would not be shared with us. Over time, sharing is becoming two-way. 

• The culture must change. Implementing sound cyber security practices must 

be as second nature as buckling a seatbelt. 

• We continually strive to eliminate traditional bureaucratic impediments. 

• We have created a safe haven in order to facilitate true collaboration and 

sharing. 

The remainder of this testimony will describe how we addressed our challenges. 

First, we needed to strategically realign our focus to meet the emerging threats.

Creation of the New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination 

The New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination (CSCIC) was established in September 2002 by Governor George E. Pataki 

in order to have an entity with a single focus dedicated to addressing the highly 

specialized needs of cyber security and critical infrastructure coordination. 

The Office is responsible for leading and coordinating New York State’s efforts regarding cyber readiness and resilience; expanding the capabilities of the State’s 

cyber incident response team; monitoring the State’s networks for malicious cyber 

activities; coordinating the process by which State critical infrastructure data is collected and maintained; as well as leading and coordinating geographic information 

technologies. 

Second, we focused on developing strong collaboration with the private sector.
62

NYS Public/Private Sector Cyber Security Workgroup 

Because more than 85% of critical infrastructure is owned or controlled by the private sector, we immediately saw the need to create true partnerships. New York 

State actively engaged the private sector in addressing the State’s cyber security 

and critical infrastructure needs. 

Our NYS Public/Private Sector Cyber Security Workgroup comprises private sector high-level executives and public sector commissioners to represent critical industry sectors, including telecommunications, financial and economic, utilities, public 

safety, chemical, health, food and education/awareness. For example, for the Telecommunications Sector, we have as co-chair from the private sector, the Vice President and Chief Cyber Security Officer for AT& T, and for the public sector, the 

Chair of the NYS Public Service Commission. 

The Workgroup is examining the current state of cyber readiness throughout the 

entities within each sector, working to identify and assess vulnerabilities and identify mitigation strategies. 

The Workgroup has published two reports: Cyber Security: Protecting New York 

State’s Critical Infrastructure details the on-going efforts in New York State to address cyber security readiness and response, in both the public and the private sectors; and The Best Practice Guidelines for Cyber Security Awareness which includes 

a number of useful tips and practical advice, along with links to additional information for all New Yorkers on how to become more ‘‘cyber security aware.’’

The Workgroup has expanded its participation to include all major entities within 

the sectors. These entities work closely with the established sector chairs and New 

York State to more fully engage those critical entities to share information and 

build important communication relationships. 

The Workgroup meets monthly via conference call with each sector and meets together as a full group in person periodically. The participation in this Workgroup 

has been tremendous, and the information sharing relationship with the private sector serves to better prepare and protect New York State. This mutual information 

sharing arrangement is an important component in helping to ensure the readiness 

and resilience of New York State’s critical infrastructure assets—both public and 

private. We are truly breaking down the traditional barriers that have prevented 

the public and private sectors from communicating. This Workgroup is important 

not only to New York, but the nation as well. 

We are also working collaboratively on the national level with the private sector, 

through the National ISAC Council. The Council represents the critical industry sectors and focuses on advancing the physical and cyber security of the critical infrastructures of North America. I’m honored to have been elected to serve as Vice 

Chair of the ISAC Council. This is another great example of strong relationships 

between the public and private sectors. 

Third, we recognized that traditional geographic borders are irrelevant when dealing with cyber security issues, so the need was clear for strong partnerships with 

other states and local governments across the nation.

Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Multi-State ISAC) 

The Multi-State ISAC is a voluntary and collaborative organization. I am pleased 

to say that we have 50 states and the District of Columbia as members, and we 

are actively pursuing local governments and territories. The mission of the MultiState ISAC, consistent with the objectives of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, is to provide a common mechanism for raising the level of cyber security 

readiness and response in each state and with local governments. The MS–ISAC 

provides a central resource for gathering information on cyber threats to critical infrastructure from the states and providing two-way sharing of information between 

and among the states and with local government. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has officially recognized the MultiState ISAC as the national ISAC for the states and local governments to help coordinate cyber readiness and response.

Major Objectives of the Multi-State ISAC 

• to provide two-way sharing of information on cyber critical infrastructure incidents and threats 

• to provide a process for gathering and disseminating information on cyber 

and physical threats to cyber critical infrastructures 

• to share security incident information among critical industry sectors 

• to focus on the cyber and physical vigilance, readiness, and resilience of our 

country’s cyber critical infrastructure assets 

• to promote awareness of the interdependencies between cyber and physical 

critical infrastructure as well as between and among the different sectors 

• to ensure that all necessary parties are vested partners in this effort 
63

• to work collaboratively with the public and private sectors to foster communication and coordination 

• to coordinate training and awareness 

The following major initiatives reflect the successes we—ve accomplished at both 

the New York State level and the Multi-State ISAC level.

7x 24 Cyber Security Center 

One of the key components in addressing our cyber security needs is the establishment of a 7x24 cyber security center. This Center provides cyber security monitoring 

for and analysis of intrusions and other anomalous cyber activity for New York 

State agencies and public universities, as well as the members of the Multi-State 

ISAC. The State has deployed Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS) for 

the State agencies. Since the inception of the IDS/IPS program in May 2003, more 

than 17 billion log entries have been analyzed. Currently we also provide intrusion 

prevention monitoring for the State of Alaska, and several other states are actively 

engaging the MS–ISAC in considering similar arrangements. 

The Center monitors cyber intelligence activity at a State, national and global 

level. It works closely with US–CERT, cyber researchers, security vendors and ISPs. 

The Center distributes cyber security advisories and alerts to all New York State 

agencies, to members of the private sector through its Public/Private Sector 

Workgroup and to other States and local governments through the Multi-State 

ISAC. New York State also posts cyber alerts and advisories on its public website: 

www.cscic.state.ny.us, and the Multi-State ISAC through its public website: 

www.msisac.org. 

The Center monitors State and local government websites for web page defacements and affected entities are notified. In 2005, 1,169 defacements have been reported out to state and local governments.

Incident Response Team 

New York State has an incident response team to respond to cyber incidents. A 

mandatory incident policy has been issued to all state agencies, which outlines what 

must be reported and how. The goal of this policy is to ensure that a state entity 

recovers from an incident in a timely and secure manner and to minimize impact. 

Reporting incidents to a central group promotes collaboration and information sharing with other sites that may be experiencing similar problems.

The Multi-State ISAC Members also report incidents to the Multi-State ISAC. The 

Multi-State ISAC serves as the liaison between the states and US CERT for cyber 

incident reporting.

Multi-State ISAC Secure Portal and Cyber Security Alert Map 

The Multi-State ISAC uses the US–CERT portal as its secure portal. The MultiState ISAC’s compartment on this portal serves as a central repository for MultiState ISAC members to utilize as a secure mechanism in sharing important, secure 

and vital information among the states. The portal allows for secure emailing and 

includes a library so that Multi-State ISAC members can readily share information 

and documents, such as statewide policies, procedures, and white papers. 

One of the most unique features on the Multi-State ISAC secure portal is an alert 

map application that the Multi-State ISAC developed. This is a map of the nation, 

in which each state displays its current cyber security alert level, along with contact 

information for the Multi-ISAC Members. The Multi-State ISAC members have 

adopted this common Cyber Alert Indicator Protocol process; thus, when any MultiState ISAC member state is at a ‘‘Guarded’’ level for cyber, for example, all of the 

other Multi-State ISAC Members will know the specific criteria used to arrive at 

that level.

State ISACs on the Secure Portal 

A major step in fostering the strong relationships between and among state and 

local governments is the build-out of the secure portal so that each MS–ISAC Member state will have its own section of the portal in which to communicate securely, 

share documents, and display alert level status. This pilot is currently underway 

with five states. 

These individual state ‘‘ISACs’’ will include representatives from state agencies, 

counties, cities and other municipalities and educational institutions and will provide the following benefits to members: 

• direct access to cyber security threat information from the State 

• access to security awareness materials, including computer-based training 

modules 

• access to security policy templates 

• access to security-related solutions 
64

• periodic meetings, teleconferences and webcasts to promote peer networking 

and information sharing 

This initiative is focusing on building strong relationships between and among the 

state and local government entities to best ensure our cyber readiness. 

To view examples of the alert map and the individual state ISAC sections of the 

portal, please refer to Appendix A.

Local Government Committee 

Local governments face the same cyber security issues. However, many of them can 

be at a disadvantage in addressing the issues due to lack of resources and expertise. 

We are cognizant of the need for local government involvement and want local government as vested partners as we move forward. 

To that end, I’ve established a Local Government Cyber Security Committee 

(Committee), with representatives from towns, counties, cities, and schools and state 

government. The Committee, established in May 2005, has been meeting monthly 

to develop a roadmap for addressing the cyber security needs of local governments. 

The Committee is focused on ascertaining the issues, building communication channels, and identifying mitigation strategies. 

The Committee’s goal was to develop a document that provides a non-technical 

resource to executives and managers to help them better understand the importance 

of cyber security and what they need to know about the issues. 

The Committee has produced one of its first priority projects: the Local Government Information Security: Getting Started Guide. This is a brief, practical reference 

intended for entities that may not have the technology or information security expertise of other entities and therefore need a basic ‘‘how to get started’’ resource for 

addressing information security challenges. 

This Guide is a joint effort with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division. 

The Getting Started guide covers the following topics: 

• Introduction to Information Security 

• Why is Information Security Important 

• What is an Unprotected Computer 

• What is a Cyber Incident 

• Top Ten Things that must be done 

• Glossary of information security terms 

• Daily/weekly/monthly/annual checklist for the designated information security 

individual(s) 

Future volumes of the Guide will include appendices that expand on the topics 

presented in the first volume, providing more detail about the steps necessary to 

secure the information which the citizens have entrusted to local governments. The 

appendices will be distributed in installments periodically over the year and will 

contain non-technical, plain language descriptions with specific action steps, along 

with references for further information. 

We are also working on compiling a national database of contact information for 

local government representatives so that we can communicate more effectively and 

share information, including cyber alerts and advisories, future appendices of the 

Guides and other relevant information.

National Webcast Initiative 

The MS–ISAC, in cooperation with the U.S Department of Homeland Security, 

through its National Cyber Security Division, has launched a partnership to deliver 

a series of national webcasts which examine critical and timely cyber security 

issues. 

Embracing the concept that ‘‘cyber security is everyone’s responsibility,’’ these 

webcasts are available to a broad audience to help raise awareness and knowledge 

levels. The webcasts provide practical information and advice that users can apply 

immediately. All sessions are recorded and archived for viewing via the MS–ISAC 

public website. 

Thousands of individuals from across the country and around the world participate in the webcasts. 

One of the highlights of the webcast program is the national webcast held in October as part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month. This webcast is focused 

on how to keep our children safe online and features an interactive play for 4th and 

5th grade age levels. The session will be broadcast live via the Internet and satellite 

and will be rebroadcast several times throughout the day to maximize viewing in 

each time zone. Last October, more than 5,000 teachers, parents, students and others participated in that broadcast and we look forward to another successful event 

this October 4! 
65

To view a listing of all webcasts conducted through the National Webcast Initiative, please refer to Appendix B.

Partnership with U.S. Department of Homeland Security, National Cyber 

Security Division 

As highlighted in this testimony, the Multi-State ISAC has a strong partnership 

with the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) and its operational arm, the US–

CERT. Through this partnership, we work together on many initiatives including 

sharing and analyzing information regarding cyber threats and events, conducting 

national webcasts, publishing cyber security awareness materials, conducting cyber 

exercises, as well as National Cyber Security Awareness Month activities. These initiatives help further the goal of improving our nation’s cyber security posture.

Training and Awareness Activities 

In New York, we have a number of ongoing training and awareness activities including: • Annual Statewide Cyber Security Conference. We just held our ninth annual 

Cyber Security Conference. This Conference is free of charge to government employees. Consistent with our motto that ‘‘Cyber Security is everyone’s responsibility,’’ the scope of the Conference has expanded over the years to where we 

now provide multiple tracks covering a wide spectrum of cyber security issues, 

including technical, legal, auditing, academia, business managers and local government. This is the largest free government conference of its type in the country. 

• Annual Kids Safe Online Conference. We are sponsoring our second annual 

Kids Safe Online Conference next month. Our target audience includes parents, 

educators, law enforcement officers as well as kids. The subject is not only what 

are the dangers for children online, but what are the solutions. This Conference 

is free to the public. 

• Information Security Officers (ISOs). New York was the first state to appoint 

a statewide Information Security Office and I believe the first to require each 

agency to appoint an information security officer. The agency ISOs have a dotted line reporting relationship with my Office. We hold monthly meetings with 

the ISOs where we focus on current issues and training opportunities. Agency 

ISOs are required to have twenty-four hours a year of continuing professional 

education. We also sponsor statewide cyber security training for ISOs and technical staff. For example, we are currently sponsoring a seven-week online course 

for information security professionals to increase their skills. 

• Technical Staff. We are sponsoring training on secure coding for application 

developers. In the past, we provided a 12 week course designed to increase the 

cyber security knowledge of technical staff and prepare staff to sit for the 

CISSP (Certificated Information Security Systems Professional) Exam. This 

training was video taped and made available to state and local governments on 

a national level. 

• Senior Staff. Once a year, we provide a half-day awareness session for agency 

heads and their senior staff. The focus is to keep them informed of cyber security issues and to ensure they have the requisite knowledge to address them. 

It’s also important to employ unique and creative solutions to increase awareness and education. We need to make it real. One of the approaches I took was 

to demonstrate to agency commissioners what is really meant when a computer 

is hacked. By having them see first-hand what could happen, it increased their 

awareness of the importance of cyber security. 

• End Users. We developed a toolkit for State agencies, along the same line as 

the toolkit developed for the Multi-State ISAC. This includes calendars, mouse 

pads and posters, all with the cyber security message. We also produced a cyber 

security video that is used for training new employees at State agencies, as well 

as local governments. This was also made available to state and local governments on a national level. In addition, we conducted a ‘‘phishing exercise’’ with 

several state agencies to assess the current state of cyber awareness and identify where further education is necessary. 

• Cyber Exercises. We sponsor and participate in periodic cyber security exercises to test our plans, policies, practices and procedures. 

In our role as Coordinator of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis 

Center, we work with states to develop, share and collaborate on training and 

awareness activities including: 

• Proclamations: In 2005, thirty-six Multi-State ISAC members reported that 

proclamations were issued by their respective governors proclaiming October 

2005 as Cyber Security Awareness month. This is an increase of twenty-four 

from the previous year. This demonstrates the increasing awareness of cyber se-
66

curity issues at the state level. A copy of our 2005 Cyber Security Month AfterAction Report is attached. 

• Tool Kits. We develop an annual tool kit for the states to use to promote 

Cyber Security Awareness. This includes posters, calendars, mouse pads and 

new for 2006 is the development of Public Service Announcements that are customized for each state. 

• Cyber Exercise. In partnership with U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 

we coordinate Multi-State (state and local government) participation in regional 

and national exercises to test our plans, policies, practices and processes in responding to a cyber event. We need to insure that we have the capability to provide prompt and accurate situational awareness reports at the state and national level. 

• Technical Training. We coordinate state participation of state and local governments in national training programs sponsored by the federal government. 

We also negotiate some volume discounts for states to participate in training 

provided by the private sector. 

• End User. We are just completing the development of a Computer Based 

Training Program that will be made available to state and local governments 

nationally. This is a tutorial which educates end users on the basics of information security and what their responsibilities are to safeguard our government 

information systems. We publish a monthly Cyber Security Newsletter for end 

users. The newsletter focuses on one cyber security issue each month that is 

relevant for end users/home users. The newsletter is distributed to the states 

and local government which then push it out to the end users. 

For a summary of the MS–ISAC Accomplishments, please refer to Appendix C.

Funding for the Multi-State ISAC 

We very much appreciate the fiscal support from the Department of Homeland Security for the Multi-State ISAC. The current funding level of one million dollars a 

year amounts to twenty thousand dollars per state. While we have worked hard to 

leverage this available funding, more meaningful, long lasting change would be possible if more funding was available. Our ability to help raise the awareness and preparedness of states and local governments (for example, intrusion prevention monitoring and correlation of data) to help improve their cyber security posture is constrained due to the limited fiscal resources. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. Thank you Chairman Lungren and 

Members of this Subcommittee for your strong leadership and attention to this important matter.
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Appendix A
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69
70
71
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Appendix B—National Webcase Initiative Topics and Description 

August 16, 2006

Instant Messaging

The broadcast presentation raised awareness on instant messaging (IM) and how 

IM is being used today as a source of communication online—both at home and at 

work. While IM can be a convenient and quick way to chat with others or collaborate on business matters, there are security concerns that we must understand and 

address. This webcast provided attendees with accurate and up-to-date information 

so that each of us can take the necessary steps to help protect ourselves online.

June 28, 2006

Remote Access

The broadcast presentation raised awareness on popular secure remote access solutions in terms of business use cases, high level deployment scenarios, and security 

and operational considerations.

April 13th, 2006

Voice-Over IP—How secure is your network infrastructure for handling 

VoIP?

VoIP is growing in popularity. Two-thirds of the world’s 2,000 largest companies 

will be using VOIP systems in 2006 and by 2009, 27 million Americans will use 

Internet phones at home. The presentation raised awareness on network security 

issues and challenges that arise in today’s network world.

February 16th, 2006

Identity Theft—The crime that keeps on taking!

The February 16th broadcast presentation focused on what ID Theft is, how to 

protect yourself, and what to do if you think you may have become a victim. The 

presenters walked through a variety of scenarios to help explain these concepts and 

provided specific advice on what steps to take.

December 15, 2005

Cyber Security Tips During the Holiday Season

The broadcast included such topics as online shopping transactions and the need 

to secure your private information online; understanding how to properly check your 

security settings on the new computer you just received as a gift; and what to look 

for when visiting legitimate web sites.
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October 20, 2005

Protecting Our Children on the Internet

The National Webcast on Protecting Our Children on the Internet consisted of a 

play entitled Cyber Smart in Cyber Space geared toward the 4th and 5th grade age 

levels in which actors performed a cyber security-related skit interacting with the 

children. The play used content from CyberSmart!, an organization dedicated to 

teaching secure, responsible and effective Internet and computer use, and acted out 

with members of the Plays for Living organization, a nonprofit organization that utilizes live theater dramas to depict the real-life challenges and stresses many people 

face on a daily basis at work, at home and in the community.

July 20, 2005

Wireless Security

The webcast provided a non-technical presentation on Wireless Security. The 

webcast applied to all computer users—whether you are using your wireless-enabled 

laptop at the local coffee house or running a network that hosts sensitive customer 

data, you need to understand the issues and how to use wireless technology safely. 

Attendees walked away with a better understanding of the diversity of wireless devices that are used today, the security that can be applied behind the wireless network, and solutions of how you can be more secure.

May 18, 2005

Botnets

The webcast provided a non-technical presentation on BotNets. BotNets are becoming a significant problem across the Internet and are increasing at an alarming 

rate. They are a growing source for staging denial of service attacks, identity theft, 

phishing attacks and SPAM mail relay services. Please visit the archived presentation and learn about how to defend against BotNets, what to do when your machine has been compromised, and how to respond when your machine has been controlled by BotNets.

March 16, 2005

Are You Secure?. . .Are You Sure? 

Vulnerability Management

The webcast provided a ‘‘low/medium technical’’ discussion about what each of us 

should do on a daily basis to be more secure. The volume of malicious cyber activity 

continues on an upward curve. The sophistication of hacker tools continues to grow 

while the expertise required to deploy them is decreasing. Phishing schemes are becoming increasingly difficult to discern from legitimate email. Botnets are increasing 

at an alarming rate. These facts require that your information systems are as secure as possible and that you have appropriate measures in place to decrease your 

vulnerability to these cyber threats.

February 9, 2005 

Adware/Spyware: 

How to Protect Yourself from Today’s Most Dangerous Spyware Threats 

The webcast provided a non-technical discussion about what each of us should do 

on a daily basis to be more secure. This session focused on an in-depth analysis of 

today’s most egregious spyware/adware programs.

October 19 , 2004

Are YOU the Weakest Link?

The webcast provided a non-technical discussion about what each of us should do 

on a daily basis to be more secure. This session focused on the human elements of 

cyber security, which are just as important, if not more so, than the technical elements, and included examples of the various types of scams and pitfalls we need 

to watch out for, and how to protect ourselves.

August 26, 2004 

Performing a Cyber Security Risk Assessment: 

Why? When? and How?

The webcast focused on the steps organizations should take in addressing risk and 

provided timely and practical advice that can be applied immediately.

June 22, 2004

Cyber Security: The Three Things You Should Have Done Yesterday and The 

Three Things You Should Do Today

The webcast included discussion of the biggest challenges to security, what you 

should have already been doing in your organization to address those challenges, 

and what you must do today.
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Appendix C—Highlights of MS–ISAC Accomplishments 

• establishment of a 24 x 7 operations center 

• distribution of cyber security advisories and bulletins 

• cyber incident response assistance to MS–ISAC Members 

• monthly Member conference calls 

• annual meetings of the Members 

• two MS–ISAC websites—a public and a secure website 

• participation in cyber exercises, including the national Live Wire and Cyber 

Storm exercises 

• development and adoption of common cyber alert level protocols 

• development of draft cyber incident reporting protocols 

• support and promotion of National Cyber Security Awareness Month 

MS–ISAC Deliverables for 2005 National Cyber Awareness Month: 

36 MS–ISAC Members (35 States and the District of Columbia) signed 

proclamations recognizing Awareness Month; 

Cyber Security Toolkits were developed and distributed to all 50 States 

and the District of Columbia; 

PSAs for Governors were distributed; 

National Webcast was conducted with more than 5,000 registrants from 

across the country. 

Awareness Month materials available at: http://www.cscic.state.ny.us/

msisac/ncsa/oct05/index.htm 

• development and execution of legal NDA for the Members to sign 

• development and adoption of the MS–ISAC Business Plan 

• development and adoption of the MS–ISAC Charter 

• development and adoption of MS–ISAC Member Representative Guidelines 

• development and adoption of ISAC Council Representation Guidelines 

• development and adoption of MS–ISAC Contact Administration Guidelines 

• establishment of the MS–ISAC Nominating Committee 

• issuance of white papers 

• served as chair for the state and local section of the ‘‘Awareness and Outreach’’ Task Force of the NCSP—the Task Force issued a report detailing specific action items to be taken to increase end user cyber security awareness 

• collaboration with all necessary parties

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much. 

Now, we will hear from Mr. Paul Kurtz, the executive director 

of the Cybersecurity Industry Alliance. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL B. KURTZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CYBER SECURITY INDUSTRY ALLIANCE 

Mr. KURTZ. Mr. Chairman and other members of the committee, 

thank you very much for asking me here today. 

Cyber systems are our newest and most pervasive infrastructure. 

They drive and organize every fact of our collective and individual 

lives from national and economic security to personal health and 

wellbeing. 

And, yet, we do not have a strategic national capability to assess 

how well the mot critical systems are protected and what the consequences are if they fail. There is little strategic direction or leadership from the federal government in the area of information security. 

Ensuring resiliency and integrity of our information infrastructure and protecting the privacy of our citizens should be a higher 

priority for the government. We must move beyond philosophy and 

statements of aspiration to defining priorities and programs. 

CSIA believes the government has a responsibility to lead, set 

priorities and coordinate and facilitate protection and response. 

Let me be clear. This is not a call for regulation for intervention. 

This is a call for leadership. 
75

So if I could, I am going to depart from my prepared notes and 

list six recommendations for consideration for DHS. 

Number one, lead, lead, lead. Number two, prevention and mitigation programs. In this area, I would highlight two key important 

points. R&D, Doug Bond, who is the head of cybersecurity R&D at 

DHS is doing a fantastic job, but he is lost in a bureaucratic morass. Doug’s work needs to be recognized. It needs to be funded appropriately. 

Second, in this area, we need to investigate incentives specifically 

facilitating the growth of insurance. 

The third area that I would highlight would be establish an active early warning program that embraces the private sector. Currently, the ITISAC is being held at arm’s distance by the Department of Homeland Security. It should be more fully embraced and 

its work should be recognized. 

Fourth, we need to establish command and control procedures for 

when the balloon goes up, and it will go up. That means two key 

questions. A, what is the process for determining an incident of national significance? What agencies are involved inside the government? Who is involved in the private sector, as well? 

Secondly, what are the implications of that decision? Legally, 

what does it mean for government? What does it mean for the private sector? A cyber incident of national significance, that language 

is drawn from the national response plan that has been prepared 

by DHS. 

The fifth recommendation is ensure we have resilient communications in place to execute command and control when a crisis 

surfaces. So imagine when we have a problem, we are going to grab 

that phone or we are going to use the computer, but think of the 

phone in an IT environment. 

Will it work when the very infrastructure is under attack? So we 

need to ensure we have resilient communications in place. 

The sixth recommendation is to establish a national information 

assurance policy, which enshrine basically the five recommendations that I outlined before. 

The protection of the information infrastructure goes beyond 

DHS. Clearly, the president has established that DHS has the lead 

in coordination. But when the balloon goes up and when we have 

problems, DOD will be involved, the FTC will be involved, and 

multiple other agencies will be involved at the same time. 

And with that, I will close and I will take questions later. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Kurtz follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PAUL B. KURTZ

Introduction 

Chairman Lungren, Ranking Member Sanchez and members of the Subcommittee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify today before the House Subcommittee on 

Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity. My name is Paul 

Kurtz and I am Executive Director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA). 

CSIA is the only advocacy group dedicated to ensuring the privacy, reliability and 

integrity of information systems through public policy, technology, education and 

awareness. The organization is led by CEOs from the world’s top security providers 

who offer the technical expertise, depth and focus needed to encourage a better understanding of security issues. It is our belief that a comprehensive approach to en-
76

suring the security and resilience of information systems is fundamental to global 

protection, national security and economic stability. 

Before joining CSIA, I served at the White House on the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. On the NSC, I served as Director of 

Counterterrorism and Senior Director of the Office of Cyberspace Security. On the 

HSC, I was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Critical Infrastructure Protection. 

My testimony will address four themes for consideration by Congress on refining 

the role of the Department of Homeland Security as it relates to national cyber security: • Inadequate attention • Lack of leadership • No plan to prevent or minimize a major cyber disaster • No plan for working with the private sector to recover from a cyber disaster

Cyber Security is Receiving Inadequate Attention from DHS 

Last week in his updated national strategy for counterterrorism, President George 

W. Bush declared that ‘‘America is safer but we are not yet safe.’’ The reality of 

physical terror occurring in the United States of America has riveted our attention 

since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Prevention of any physical incident of horror has since been priority one. 

The President’s reminder for vigilance clearly applies to threats against our physical well-being, but his admonition must also apply to the threats against cyber security. To some the idea of terrorists or hackers breaking into computers may sound 

like an abstract threat, especially when compared to the shock of a suicide bomber 

killing innocent people and destroying property. However, a successful massive 

cyber attack could trigger grave harm for many Americans if it knocked out communications and information systems for emergency response, energy, transportation, 

and other critical resources that depend on IT. The nation experienced such vivid 

fallout from a regionalized natural disaster last year in the aftermath of Hurricane 

Katrina—imagine this disaster on a national scale. 

Since 9/11, responsibility for coordinating federal efforts on national safety shifted 

to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has predictably reacted to a myriad 

of security challenges by focusing first on immediate physical threats. This focus is 

understandable, but it has also impeded progress toward stronger national cyber security. As a result, the United States remains unprepared to defend itself against 

a massive cyber attack or to systematically recover and reconstitute information systems after a successful attack. 

My testimony will describe what DHS is and is not doing with respect to national 

cyber security, plus the need for DHS to specify how it and the private sector would 

coordinate actions if a massive cyber attack were to occur. By realistically refining 

the Department’s role in national cyber security, DHS can escalate cyber security 

efforts in concert with efforts to prevent physical terror in America.

There is no leadership at DHS for national cyber security 

Despite publication of more than 750 pages of strategies, directives and response 

plans, leadership in the U.S. government on cyber security is clearly absent. The 

practical significance of lack of leadership means the nation is not ready for a major 

disruption to our information infrastructure. 

National coordination of cyber security is the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, and its related leadership position is Assistant Secretary for Cyber 

Security and Telecommunications. This new position was established in July 2005 

by Secretary Chertoff specifically to elevate the importance of cyber security in relation to DHS’s main focus on physical security. Unfortunately, fourteen months later, 

the Assistant Secretary position is unfilled, which reflects the low priority DHS still 

has toward cyber security. No one is in charge to lead efforts to protect information 

infrastructure against cyber attacks or to lead response and recovery. 

Another consequence of this leadership vacuum at DHS is an unclear, uncoordinated strategy for cyber security. The agency has pushed plenty of paper on the 

topic but people responsible for securing information technology in government, public and the private sector would be hard pressed to identify the top DHS priorities. 

The threats to information security are real. Digital systems underpin vital infrastructure throughout the nation and a major disruption to, or widespread lack of 

confidence in these systems could have a devastating effect on our citizens, our economy and security. The real need is for concrete action guided by a few key national 

priorities understood by those who must ensure cyber security. DHS needs to immediately fill the position for Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications to crystallize a few key priorities, and develop programs that support and 

achieve those priorities. 
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1See CSIA Policy Briefing, ‘‘Federal Funding for Cyber Security R&D’’ (July 2005). 

An important role for the new Assistant Secretary will be ensuring that priorities 

for cyber security reflect the fact that all critical functions of all industry sectors 

rely on IT and telecommunications. Coordination and leadership should be the primary concern for DHS. 

Lastly, DHS and the White House can take steps to consolidate multiple presidential-level advisory bodies in the area of IT and telecommunications. For example, 

we have NSTAC and NIAC that clearly have overlapping responsibilities and areas 

of inquiry. These should be combined to ensure that presidential advice and recommendations are made holistically, looking across key critical infrastructures, and 

not in separate silos.

DHS needs to specify steps to prevent and/or minimize a massive cyber attack or telecommunications disaster 

DHS documents such as the National Response Plan and the National Infrastructure Protection Plan attempt to not omit any unconsidered detail. Virtually no agency, program or initiative is left unmentioned in sweeping surveys of the cyber security landscape. The downside to this ocean of detail is that every point seems equally important. Lack of prioritization makes it difficult for organizations to take practical coordinated action to secure their information systems. 

CSIA believes this lack of prioritization dilutes the Department’s limited resources and makes it less effective in preparing the nation against a massive attack. 

DHS should articulate a smaller set of priorities focused on preventing and/or minimizing the likelihood or severity of a massive cyber attack or telecommunications 

disaster. 

Creating cyber security for critical systems entails using a combination of technological solutions and best practices for IT. With regard to cyber security technology, 

its successful use is linked to understanding vulnerabilities of operating systems, 

applications, networks, and literally thousands of protocols that enable modern IT. 

Acquiring this knowledge is a moving target due to the complex interdependencies 

of these technologies and their continuous evolution. 

There are 4 major areas of logical activity that DHS should crystallize programs 

around: • Risk Management—identification and classification of Critical Infrastructure • Research & Development—solutions to identify, prevent and recover from attacks 

• Incentives—encourage problems to be resolved, not postponed • Insurance—ensures continuing US financial viability after a cyber loss

Risk Management 

An important starting place is for DHS to encourage organizations to pursue 

cyber security as they would manage other types of risks. In evaluating the nation’s 

IT resources, DHS should help identify the most critical interdependencies and urge 

organizations to concentrate on protecting those systems first. One positive effort 

underway is the partnership between DHS and the private sector in developing a 

protection plan for the IT infrastructure. Under the plan, the private sector is identifying common risk-management processes and techniques. However, this effort is 

lacking senior-level attention at DHS.

Research & Development 

DHS could play a major national role by funding cyber security research and development (R&D) in the private sector. Instead, more than 98 percent of last year’s 

$1.039 billion science and technology budget of DHS went to R&D on weapons of 

mass destruction. Less than 2% ($18 million) was for cyber security, and of that 

only about $1.5 million was for basic research.1

We understand the concern about threats to physical security, but CSIA believes 

DHS has inadvertently placed the nation in the way of another harmful vector by 

virtually ignoring R&D on cyber security. 

Where DHS has spent money on cyber security R&D there has been some success. 

Over the past 18 months, the Department’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate has participated in a technology demonstration project with the Oil and Gas 

sector. The project, entitled LOGIIC—Linking the Oil and Gas Industry to Improve 

Cybersecurity—is a public-private partnership between DHS, several companies 

from the oil and gas sector, process control system (PCS) and information security 

technology vendors, and the National Labs. This project is aimed at reducing 

vulnerabilities in process control environments used in the oil and gas sector by establishing a framework for assessing risks, evaluating new technologies, integrating 

these new technologies into a test environment, and demonstrating commercial 
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2 ‘‘Challenges in Developing a Public/Private Recovery Plan,’’ GAO–06–863T (July 28, 2006). 

event detection and correlation technologies that can significantly enhance situational awareness on PCS networks used in refineries and other large industrial facilities. 

There is strong historical precedent for federally funding R&D for emerging technologies of national significance. The Internet is the most famous example, beginning with seed money in 1962 from with the Defense Advanced Research Projects 

Agency’s (DARPA). The Internet is now a vital global infrastructure almost entirely 

owned and operated by the private sector. Other examples of federal funding for 

R&D that resulted in important innovations for cyber security include firewalls, intrusion detection systems, fault tolerant networks, open operating systems, cryptography and advanced authentication. CSIA urges DHS to shift a larger portion of its 

R&D budget to programs that will bolster national cyber security.

Incentives 

The time-tested government practice of offering incentives for private investment 

is another avenue worthy of examination by DHS. By offering incentives such as 

tax credits for implementation of security solutions, the federal government could 

dramatically accelerate adoption of measures to shore up national cyber security—

just as it has done to spur other initiatives deemed as important for the country 

by Congress. The key is to develop very carefully-crafted incentives targeted at high 

priority systems such as certain SCADA systems and Internet security protocols. 

Many SCADA systems operate on unsupported application platforms and must be 

moved to a virtual ‘‘sandbox’’ to remediate immediate and urgent security threats.

Insurance 

On a related non-technical note, insurance is a practical way for organizations to 

recover from catastrophic loss. Private insurance policies, however, do not usually 

provide ‘‘cyber risk coverage’’ due to the newness of this concept and lack of data 

enabling insurers to establish actuarial loss tables and a viable premium structure. 

To be effective, premiums for cyber attack coverage would have to include natural 

risk management incentives for organizations to balance the cost of premiums 

against the cost of taking preventative measures for security. CSIA believes DHS, 

in partnership with the Department of Commerce, should sponsor research into viable uses of private-sector insurance coverage for cyber attacks. 

DHS has not specified how it will work with the private sector to a cyber 

incident of national significance 

The other major yet unarticulated priority for DHS is describing how it will work 

with the private sector to respond to and recover from a massive failure of information technology systems—whether from a cyber attack or a natural disaster. This 

issue is important because it’s the private sector—not DHS—that owns and operates 

information technology systems for most of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The 

unanswered question affecting all is: What is a suitable role for DHS as well as 

other key federal agencies, including DoD and the FCC in facilitating recovery and 

reconstitution from a cyber incident of national importance? 

DHS is well aware that the private sector ‘‘runs the show,’’ which may account 

for its encouragement of public-private partnerships. I am sure that everyone involved with the multitude of DHS-sponsored public-private partnerships participates 

with the best of intentions, but there is a lack of clarity in what this work is accomplishing. The Government Accounting Office recently reported that progress on 

those initiatives is limited, some lack time frames for completion, and relationships 

between these initiatives are unclear.2

Consequently, DHS needs to articulate a chain-of-command for each step of recovery and reconstitution. For example, the DHS’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US–CERT) may be aware of a network attack, but the North American 

Network Operators Group (NANOG) is the operational forum for backbone/enterprise networking. Considerations for this type of situation include: 

• Which entity should be in charge of coordinating the actual work of recovery 

and reconstitution? 

• What, if any, related legal authority is possessed by DHS and the federal government? 

• What obligations do private sector entities have to obey directives from DHS? 

• Who would resolve conflicting demands for scarce cyber resources? 

• What enforcement power does DHS have in the process of helping the nation 

recover from a cyber disaster? 

In this context, I would note that DHS in February sponsored ‘‘Cyber Storm,’’ a 

large-scale exercise focused on some of these questions. CSIA and its members sup-
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3 Business Roundtable, ‘‘Essential Steps to Strengthen America’s Cyber Terrorism Preparedness’’ (June 2006); see also Section 15 of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, ‘‘Management of Domestic Incidents’’ (Feb. 28, 2003), and the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace

(Feb. 2003).

ported the exercise but some six months after the event, DHS’s after action report 

containing lessons learned has not been shared with key owners and operators in 

the private sector. 

In addition to chain-of-command, DHS needs to articulate an emergency communications system that works even when standard telecommunications and Internet 

connectivity are disrupted. Emergency communications entail more than simply establishing a resilient mechanism allowing people to talk. It also requires advance 

identification of the right people from appropriate organizations who speak the 

‘‘same language’’ for establishing rapid recovery and reconstitution of national systems. 

These are but a few of the details that must be articulated and agreed upon in 

advance if the nation is to truly prepare for recovery and reconstitution from a cyber 

disaster. Ostensibly, DHS would have a leading role in planning. 

These issues should be answered in the DHS’s 400-plus page National Response 

Plan. Unfortunately, the plan does not articulate clear answers on how federal agencies work with each other, with other government entities, or with the private sector 

in responding to a national disaster. Instead of one coordinator, there are at least 

six: Homeland Security Operations Center, National Response Coordination Center, 

Regional Response Coordination Center, Interagency Incident Management Group, 

Joint Field Office, and Principal Federal Official. The National Response Plan’s discussion of cyber security is contained in the ‘‘Cyber Incident Annex.’’ The Annex 

mentions many other federal departments and agencies with ‘‘coordinating’’ responsibility for cyber incident response, including Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, 

State, the Intelligence Community, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Office 

of Management and Budget, and State, Local, and Tribal Governments. The agency 

tasked with maintaining the National Response Plan is FEMA. 

As I draw toward the end of my testimony, I wish to comment on one other topic 

that also requires close coordination of the government and private sector—namely, 

the need for a cyber early warning system that provides the nation with situational 

awareness of attacks. DHS has sponsored some mechanisms toward this end, such 

as US–CERT, and Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) that share 

some cyber alert data from the private sector with the federal government. As noted 

by the Business Roundtable, however, the nation lacks formal ‘‘trip wires’’ that provide rapid, clear indication that an attack is under way.3 This mechanism would be 

akin to NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, which usually can provide a day or so 

of advance notice before a dangerous storm lands ashore. Cyber attacks often provide far less notice to prepare and react. DHS should lead the establishment of an 

efficient national cyber warning system because the private sector is most likely to 

first detect an attack, and data correlation and follow through coordination closely 

involves the government. 

Summary of Recommendations 

In summary, CSIA offers the following recommendations for the Subcommittee’s 

consideration: 

Increase Attention to Cyber Security. DHS has inadvertently exposed the nation to another vector of attack by providing inadequate attention to cyber security. 

The Department should carefully assess its priorities to achieve more balance by 

shifting some attention from an almost exclusive focus on physical security. 

Appoint a Leader. There is no leader at DHS who is solely responsible for cyber 

security. DHS should swiftly fill the open position of Assistant Secretary for Cyber 

Security and Telecommunications to close the leadership vacuum. 

Plan to Prevent or Minimize a Major Cyber Disaster. DHS is too preoccupied with appearing to be in control of every detail related to cyber security. 

DHS should shift this energy to articulating a smaller set of priorities focused on 

preventing and/or minimizing the likelihood or severity of a massive cyber attack 

or telecommunications disaster. 

Plan to Work with the Private Sector to Recover from a Major Disaster.

The existing DHS ‘‘plan’’ for recovery cites more than a dozen federal departments 

and agencies with ‘‘coordinating’’ responsibility—not including state, local and tribal 

governments. DHS needs to clearly articulate a chain-of-command between government and the private sector for recovery from a major cyber disaster. 
80

With that, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today and am pleased to answer 

your questions. Kurtz testimony before House Subcommittee on Economic Security, 

Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity 9/13/2006

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much for your testimony. I was 

trying to write as fast as I could, since you departed from your prepared text. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. KURTZ. It is all in the written statement. I will put this together and send it. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The chair recognizes Mr. Guy Copeland, the chairman of the Information Technology Sector Coordination Council. 

STATEMENT OF GUY COPELAND, CHAIR, INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY SECTOR COORDINATING COUNCIL 

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the 

subcommittee, thank you for inviting me here today. 

As chairman of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating 

Council, I commend you for your attention to cyber and telecommunications security. I am also a vice president at Computer 

Sciences Corporation, but I am offering my personal reflections 

here today. 

Five years ago this week, we suffered a devastating terrorist attack. 9/11 did not include a cyber attack component, but it reaffirmed how dependent we are on information technology and 

communications. 
81

As an IT sector witness, I am focusing on our sector, but I also 

acknowledge the efforts of so many others who are dedicated to our 

common cause in their respective sectors. 

The IT Sector Coordinating Council formally began in January 

2006, with over 30 founding members. It is broadly representative 

of the sector and works with DHS, our sector-specific agency, the 

national cybersecurity division, or NCSD, and other organizations, 

in developing strategies and policies for critical infrastructure protection, collaborations, analysis and information sharing. 

The IT sector’s 5-year-old information sharing and analysis center, or ITISAC, is recognized and endorsed by the IT Sector Coordinating Council as our lead for the sector. 

Under Secretary Foresman, Assistant Secretary Steffen, and Mr. 

Purdy have all worked tirelessly to include us in initiatives that affect the private sector. During and since its formation, the IT Sector Coordinating Council actively engage with government colleagues in the update of the national infrastructure protection 

plan, the NIPP, and we have formed a joint effort with them to 

draft the IT sector-specific plan. 

Secretary Chertoff has proposed the establishment of an assistant secretary position, as you have discussed earlier. We stand 

ready to work with the new assistant secretary. We have not been 

on hold awaiting this appointment, but it is very important to us. 

Recognizing the importance of IT and communications, Under 

Secretary Foresman, as he stated earlier, has recently directed his 

deputy undersecretary, Robert Zitz, to provide day-to-day oversight 

of the NCSD and the national communications system, which together constitute the cybersecurity and telecommunications organization. 

I have some observations and suggestions. Trusted partnership is 

a key priority. DHS leadership has made huge strides to improving 

partnership, but still appears to be hampered by the application of 

laws and regulations rightly intended for the protection of a procurement or regulatory relationship, but not for the operational 

partnership that homeland security needs. 

Adequate operational preparedness and timely response require 

physical collocation and daily interaction. DHS should build on its 

over 20 years experience of the national coordinating center for 

telecommunications, the NCC, add representatives from the IT sector and the other time critical or sometimes we call them the millisecond sectors, and resident members should represent the core 

group of each sector. That is, the most important entities for crisis 

response. 

Ultimately, this should become the national crisis coordination 

center. 

Since its establishment, the NCC has been collocated in the defense information systems agency headquarters, with the DOD’s 

joint task force for global network operations. Current plans call for 

the NCC to relocate with the DHS U.S. CERT, as you heard earlier 

today. 

Instead, DOD, DISA and DHS should consider collocating all of 

them, the U.S. CERT, the NCC, the JTFGNO, and perhaps other 

important elements. That will allow for maximum interaction lead-
82

ing to enhanced efficiency and value for both government and industry, for both homeland and national security missions. 

Ultimately, the collocation facility could be a part of the national 

crisis coordination center. 

Mr. Chairman, subcommittee members, Congress can help. In 

my written testimony, there are more details, but here, briefly, are 

a few recommendations. 

Examine the collocation of those three entities, the NCC, the 

CERT and the JTFGNO, and other appropriate ones, to add better 

value. Examine the national crisis coordination center concept. 

Work with DHS and the IT Sector Coordinating Council and the 

Telecommunications Sector Coordinating Council to agree on 

cybersecurity priorities and ensure that DHS has the resources to 

implement them. 

Create a better environment for the critical infrastructure protection partnership. Consider forming a bipartisan House caucus for 

cybersecurity for IT and communications, to help you all understand the issues and complexities better. 

Encourage broader industry participation in critical infrastructure protection through membership in the sector coordinating 

councils and the ISACs. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for inviting me to appear today. 

[The statement of Mr. Copeland follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GUY L. COPELAND

Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you this afternoon. On behalf of the members of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council, I commend you for your continuing 

attention to Cyber and Telecommunications Security. 

Five years ago this week, we suffered the most devastating, terrorist attack in the 

history of our nation. The deliberate, horribly evil assaults on that day did not include a cyber attack. But they immediately reaffirmed how dependent we are on our 

information technology and communications sectors to respond quickly and effectively in any emergency and to recover and reconstitute normal societal functions. 

Subsequent analysis also showed that the technologies of these two sectors are 

equally crucial to prevention and preparedness at all levels. 

A little over a year ago now, Katrina painfully reminded us that natural emergencies can be devastating. The scale of Katrina’s impact and the response required 

was unprecedented. Once again though, communications and information technology 

were essential to response, recovery and reconstitution. Lessons learned have since 

been folded into the preparedness posture and emergency plans of the critical institutions, both industry and government. 

My testimony today is based, in part, on my experiences and observations on how 

we have reacted to these and other tragedies. I’ve formed these observations, in 

part, based on my experience as Chairman of the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council (IT SCC) and the immediate past President of the Information 

Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT–ISAC). Additionally, I am 

drawing on my experience as Vice President of Information Infrastructure Advisory 

Programs at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). However, I must emphasize 

that I am not speaking on behalf of CSC, the IT SCC or the IT–ISAC. I am offering 

my personal reflections, previously shared with key leaders in each organization. 

We—both the Private Sector and Government—have been building an increasingly strong partnership, starting long before DHS was created. The level and sophistication of activities and initiatives has grown tremendously during that period. 

As the Information Technology sector witness today, I am focusing my comments 

in that sector. But I am equally proud of the efforts of my friends, colleagues and 

others who are equally dedicated to our common cause in their respective sectors. 

Many companies—large and small—are among our best citizens in terms of their 

selfless contributions.
83

IT SCC 

In January 2005, while then serving as the President of the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT–ISAC), I briefed a joint industry and government group on an initial proposal to begin an effort in the IT sector 

to consider the formation of the IT Sector Coordinating Council (IT SCC). Working 

with Mr. Harris Miller, President of ITAA, the leadership of the IT–ISAC and other 

sector leaders and with the facilitation assistance of Meridian Institute provided by 

DHS, we developed the necessary formation documents through 2005. In November 

2005, we announced the interim IT SCC and in January 2006, the formal charter, 

first slate of officers and the executive committee were approved by over thirty 

founding members. 

As with SCC’s representing electricity, financial services, telecommunications, 

water, transportation, and others, the IT–SCC was organized to serve as a central 

point of coordination, collaboration and information sharing among the many members of the sector, and with the Federal agency(ies) responsible for interacting with 

a given private sector on critical infrastructure protection. The Department of 

Homeland Security—specifically the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD)—is 

the designated Sector Specific Agency responsible for collaborating with the IT sector. 

In January, the IT–SCC completed its formation procedures, ratified its operating 

charter, and elected its leadership. With Harris’s departure from ITAA, Greg Garcia, 

ITAA’s Vice President for Information Security, was elected to the SCC’ Executive 

Committee, as the Secretary. I was elected Chairman; Michael Aisenberg of 

VeriSign, Vice Chairman; and Larry Clinton of the Internet Security Alliance, 

Treasurer. 

During and since its formation, the leadership and members of the IT SCC have 

been actively engaged in collaborative partnership with their government colleagues. We were invited to participate fully in the update of the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) and our plans committee, under the leadership of 

Paul Kurtz of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance and John Lindquist of EWA, has 

formed a joint writing effort with our government colleagues, led by Cheri McGuire 

of the NCSD at DHS, to draft the IT Sector Specific Plan (SSP) which will in a few 

months be completed, staffed with our respective IT SCC and IT Government Coordinating Council membership, and approved as an annex to the NIPP. This joint 

effort exemplifies a marked improvement in the partnership as compared to the earliest days of DHS. The leadership on both sides should be commended for the strides 

that have been made. 

IT sector leadership has been pleased with the relationships we have developed 

with the current leadership within DHS. In particular, Under Secretary for Preparedness, the Honorable George Foresman: Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure 

Protection, Mr. Robert Stephan, and Acting Director of the National Cyber Security 

Division, Mr. Donald ‘‘Andy’’ Purdy, have all worked tirelessly to include us in initiatives that affect the private sector. They have provided encouragement and support. They have been open to consideration of our recommendations. They have included us in the development of key documents such as the recent National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). Recognizing the importance of cyber securityand 

communications, Undersecretary Foresman has recently directed his Deputy Under 

Secretary, Robert Zitz, to provide day-to-day oversight of the NCSD and the National Communications System, which together constitute the new Cyber Security 

and Telecommunications organization. Our leadership has met with Mr. Zitz and we 

are impressed with how quickly he has picked up the reins and the approaches he 

is espousing. In short, they are trying as hard as anyone can—within current government restrictions on private sector relationships—to develop, nurture and grow 

a valuable and essential partnership for critical infrastructure protection. 

There are many challenges remaining for us to address and new ones are sure 

to arise. We look forward to meeting those challenges with them and with their successors.

IT–ISAC and the ISAC Council 

PDD 63 called for industry establishment of Information Sharing and Analysis 

Centers (ISACs). The Information Technology (IT) sector coordinator, Mr. Harris 

Miller, President of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and 

other sector leaders began developing the necessary charter documents and reaching 

out to potential members. On January 16, 2001, in a press conference held at the 

Department of Commerce, 19 founding members formally announced the IT–ISAC. 

The mission of the IT–ISAC is to provide 
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1 ‘‘Statement of Secretary Michael Chertoff, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Before the 

United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.’’ July 19, 2005. 

• Trusted and confidential reporting, exchange and analysis of sensitive cyber 

and physical information concerning incidents, threats, attacks, vulnerabilities, 

solutions, countermeasures, and best security practices. 

• A trusted mechanism enabling the systematic and confidential exchange of 

member information with strong and enforceable legal protections. 

• Leadership visibility for IT–ISAC members with public and private enterprises on cyber security processes and information sharing issues. 

A sampling of the value of IT–ISAC membership includes: • Access to Sensitive Threat, Vulnerability and Analytical Products • Collaboration in a Trusted Forum—vetted, trusted and confidential • Anonymity for Members—within industry and to government • Access to Cross Sector and Government Information, Contacts and Tools • Emergency Response Coordination, Operational Practices, and Exercises 

In July 2001, the IT–ISAC went operational through a 24/7 operations center 

manned by their contract with Internet Security Systems. July 2001 also found 

them helping coordinate the response to a new form of malicious software, Code 

Red. On September 11, 2001, they helped to support the response activities and a 

few days later helped to coordinate the response to another cyber threat, NIMDA. 

In 2002, the IT–ISAC established formal information sharing memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the Financial Services, Electricity and Communications 

ISACs. In 2003, it helped to establish the ISAC Council, an informal, voluntary, 

cross-sector body, consisting of the leadership of the active sector ISACs. Mr. John 

Sabo, the current IT–ISAC President, is also the current Chairman of the ISAC 

Council. 2003 also saw the IT–ISAC start daily cross-sector cyber security collaboration calls for all ISACs and government agencies (including DHS) which adhere to 

the MOU information sharing agreements. 

Since then the IT–ISAC has continued to mature and expand its capabilities. In 

2005, they hired a full time Executive Director, Mr. Scott Algeier. In addition to the 

daily cyber calls, they host twice weekly cyber technical calls which can dive deeply 

into technical issues and analysis, for example, those associated with emerging exploits or newly released patches. And they have recently added a weekly physical 

issues call which supports cross-sector sharing of information regarding physical incidents, vulnerabilities and related matters. 

Throughout 2005, IT–ISAC leadership was at the forefront of efforts to form an 

IT Sector Coordinating Council (IT SCC). SCC’s were requested of the critical infrastructures by DHS and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD 7) and 

further detailed in the National Partnership Model of the President’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC). SCCs are intended to be broadly representative of their sector and to work with DHS, Sector Specific Agencies (SSAs) and other 

organizations in developing strategies and policies for critical infrastructure protection. In January 2006, the IT SCC was formalized and in May it recognized the IT–

ISAC as the sector’s official operational information sharing mechanism. 

‘‘For operations, analysis and information sharing, the Information Technology 

Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT–ISAC) is recognized and endorsed 

by the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council (IT SCC) as our 

lead for the IT sector. The IT–ISAC has served since 2001 and will continue 

to serve as the main vehicle for communicating information about threats, 

vulnerabilities and incidents, especially through its Operations Center on a 24/

7/365 basis. It is also our main vehicle for information analysis.’’

IT SCC Chair and Vice Chair Letter to Asst. Sec. Robert Stephan dated 5/

26/06

Looking to the Future

Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunciations 

In his Second Stage Review, Secretary Michael Chertoff proposed the establishment of an Assistant Secretary position for cyber security and telecommunications 

to ‘‘centralize the coordination of the efforts to protect the technological infrastructure.’’ 1

The IT Sector Coordinating Council, the IT–ISAC, and the other bodies I have 

briefly described, stand ready to welcome and work with the new Assistant Secretary from the moment he or she is announced. We have no doubts that it is in 

the interests of all of us to partner with him or her to address our common security 

concerns which cannot be addressed by each of us alone. 

Even before announcement by DHS of this Assistant Secretary position, the IT 

Sector leadership had long advocated a senior Cyber Security executive (IT and 
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2 National Early Warning Task Force Recommendation, A NATIONAL CRISIS COORDINATION CENTER, National Cyber Security Partnership, March 2004

Communications) for long term leadership, visibility, making the case for resources, 

and giving the issue area stature commensurate with the growing risks as IT and 

Communications become ever more critical to so many of our most important societal functions. The ideal appointee to this new position 

• must be credible to both government and industry, 

• must be open to new ideas and recognize the value of experienced input, 

• must be a strong leader who can build and maintain trusted partnerships, 

and 

• must convey and get support for a vision of success and a path to achieve it. 

In addition, he or she will need the commitment of DHS and Administration leadership to succeed. That commitment must strive to ensure the new Assistant Secretary is 

• empowered and supported with the resources to succeed, 

• supported by positive, ‘‘can-do’’ legal advisers willing to break new ground for 

the close, trusted relationships required for critical infrastructure protection, 

• unhampered to readily and effectively partner and communicate with the private sector, including 

• unhampered by administrative and bureaucratic trivia, 

• unhampered by excessive diversion from priorities, and 

• unhampered by well meaning but inappropriately applied restrictions.

Prioritize and Focus 

The new Assistant Secretary must avoid and be protected from chasing the issue 

of the day or week. To avoid that trap, he or she must ensure that lower priorities 

are handled as and where needed in the organization but focus his or her attention 

and that of senior management and oversight on the main priorities 

Congress can help empower the new Assistant Secretary by helping to set the 

right priorities, ensuring resources to achieve them, removing inappropriate and 

hampering restrictions and providing oversight to the priorities while avoiding diversion of time and attention to minor items

Trusted Partnership 

Trusted partnership is a key, critical priority. For critical infrastructure protection, the directly involved key personnel from Government and industry must develop into a well trained, close knit team. The current leadership at DHS has made 

huge strides to improving partnership but still appear to be hampered by perhaps 

conservative interpretation and application of laws and regulations rightly intended 

for protection of a procurement or regulatory relationship, not the national security 

partnership that Homeland Security needs. Our sectors are complex, evolutionary 

and robust. Regulation and mandates cannot achieve the intelligent preparedness 

and response capabilities that thoughtful, voluntary partnership and teamwork can 

achieve. The best partnership and teamwork is fostered through physical co-location 

and daily interaction in planning, training and executing—just as in any successful 

sports team or military unit.

Physical Co-Location for Crisis Coordination—Build on the NCC 

A top priority for continuing preparedness and timely response must be physical 

co-location and frequent daily interaction of representatives of all key players—industry and government—for crisis response management. Ultimately, we execute 

well that which we develop thoughtfully and practice carefully, learning and improving as we go. Writing a plan for winning isn’t enough. I suggest that DHS build 

on the 20+ years experience with the NCC. Continue to strengthen NCC interoperation with other key 24/7 operations such as those operated by ISACs. Add representatives from other, time-critical (‘‘millisecond sectors’’). Add others in time, 

with core group representation (i.e., representation from the most important organizations for response in the sector or entity.)

National Crisis Coordination Center 

The concept of a jointly (industry and government) manned, National Crisis Coordination Center has been around for at least a few years now. In 2004, the Early 

Warning Task Force begun as one of the National Cyber Security Summit task 

forces, recommended 2 creation of a national crisis Coordination Center to: 

• House government, industry and academic security experts, both physical and 

cyber, to bridge the cultural barriers that have hampered a true partnership in 

counterterrorism and cyber security 
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3 Next Generation Networks Task Force Report, NSTAC, March 28, 2006. 

4 Both these observations were confirmed at the August 2005 NGN Incident Response Subject 

Matter Experts meetings. See Appendix D of the Next Generation Networks Task Force Report, 

NSTAC, March 28, 2006. 5 A Review of the Top Officials 3 Exercise, DHS OIG Report OIG–06–07, p. 24 (Nov. 2005).

• Jointly prepare, exercise, evaluate and update National Joint Crisis Response 

plans to prevent, detect and respond 

• Operate joint watch centers • Conduct joint exercises at the national level to train and test the plans • Conduct joint field training at the regional level to train and further test the 

plans 

• Respond jointly to traditional natural events, as well as malicious events • Proactively share intelligence—both national security and law enforcement • Include a secure, compartmented intelligence facility staffed equally with government and private sector representatives, as well as appropriate state, local 

and other representation 

• Proactively address priority remediation of systemic vulnerabilities in national level infrastructures 

In March 2006, the NSTAC’s Next Generation Networks Report recommended a 

Joint Coordination Center.3

A joint coordination center for industry and Government should be established. 

This would be a cross-sector industry/Government facility with a round-theclock watch, and would be brought up to full strength during emergencies. Such 

a center would improve communications between industry and Government as 

well as among industry members, and would incorporate and be modeled on the 

NCC. 

The center should be a Government-funded, appropriately equipped facility, 

manned jointly by experts from all key sectors. In a fully converged NGN environment, everything will be interconnected and interdependent to a greater degree, and thus means of coordinating among all key sectors must exist. Physically collocated, joint manning is vital to achieve the high level of interpersonal 

trust needed for sharing sensitive specific information and to achieve the level 

of mutual credibility required in a fast-paced decision-oriented environment. It 

should provide the full set of planning, collaboration, and decision-making tools 

for those experts to work, whether together as a whole or in focused subgroups. 

Industry is at times hesitant to share information with the Government because 

it is unsure of how the information will be used, and Government-to-industry 

information sharing should also be improved.4 DHS has a vision for how HSOC 

will function to improve information sharing; however, the HSOC’s current 

operational interface to the private sector [the National Infrastructure Coordination Center (NICC)] is nascent and needs further development. An environment of trust must be established. A joint operations center could play a key 

role in fostering that environment and in enhancing HSOC operations. In addition, appropriately cleared industry experts collocated in a joint coordination 

center with their Government counterparts could assist the Homeland Infrastructure Threat and Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC), the DHS intelligence 

analysis arm, in performing its analytical and reporting functions, helping to 

ensure that HITRAC products are more complete, credible and useful. 

The Inspector General at DHS has also stated, ‘‘If the partnership between the 

federal government and private sector is to be successful, another key requirement 

is establishing a permanent physical location or forum so that critical and non-critical sectors can interface with one another and their federal counterparts. This is 

essential to developing and maintaining long-term collaborative relationships.’’5

NCC Relocation—an Immediate Concern 

Since its establishment, the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications 

(NCC) has been housed in the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) headquarters facility. That location was natural because the same facility housed the National Communication System (NCS) which served as the support Secretariat for the 

NSTAC and also was assigned responsibility for the jointly manned NCC. That location turned out to be invaluable for trusted, sensitive information sharing. It also 

housed or came to house DISA’s Global Network Operations and Security Center 

(GNOSC) and its subordinate Defense Department computer emergency response 

team (CERT), and the Department of Defense Joint Task Force—Global Network 

Operations (JTF–GNO). The synergy and trusted interaction between and among 

these entities has become important to all participants for both national security 

and emergency response purposes. Unfortunately, current plans call for relocating 

the NCC to co-locate it with the US–CERT operated by DHS. 
87

We should strongly consider the wisdom of separating the NCC from the DoD entities with which it is located. Instead we should encourage the leadership of the 

DoD, DISA and DHS to consider an approach that could strengthen the value for 

all: co-locate the US–CERT and other NCSD operational response elements with the 

NCC and their counterpart DoD elements. While each has a different mission and 

set of customers, they are all ultimately looking at overlapping sets of data and 

similar problem sets. Co-location will allow for greater interaction and synergy, 

leading to enhanced efficiency and value for all their ‘‘customers.’’

Because the Base Realignment and Closure process is expected to relocate DISA 

in a few years, part of the examination of the value for the nation in achieving 

multi-organization co-location will have to be an examination of facility alternatives. 

But that should not deter us from at least exploring the potential benefits that could 

be achieved for the nation and both our national and homeland security. Ultimately, 

the co-location facility could be part of the National Crisis Coordination Center 

which I have already described. 

My industry colleagues and I would be happy to participate in such an examination.

Congress Can Help 

Support Examination of NCC Co-location and Expansion to a National Crisis Coordination Center 

Look at co-location of the NCC, the US-CERT, the JTF–GNO and other existing 

similar entities for advantages to their missions, their ‘‘customers’’ and the nation. 

Similarly, examine the National Crisis Coordination Center (NCCC) concept in detail and strongly support its implementation if it holds up to your scrutiny as many 

of us expect it will. Be sure to include international liaison in the NCCC. Many of 

our allies are even more closely intertwined with us in the Cyber world than in the 

physical world. But in both, the interdependencies can be enormous. In particular, 

with Canada, many of our key critical infrastructures and dependencies are mutually shared across our common border.

Focus on Priorities 

Use your oversight and appropriations powers to work with DHS and the private 

sector in the establishment of Cyber Security priorities. Then follow-up to ensure 

DHS has the necessary resources to implement those priorities.

Create a Better Environment 

Congress can create a better environment for homeland security partnership, 

helping us achieve a tight knit, superbly prepared, professional team with high morale, and a commitment to each other to succeed. The current environment for government and industry interaction is designed rightly to prevent fraud and abuse in 

procurement or regulatory matters or other areas where an unscrupulous actor 

might try to further a personal or organizational agenda, contrary to the public 

good. In many ways, those rules implicitly require Government personnel to maintain an ‘‘arms length,’’ almost adversary relationship. At the very least, it implicitly 

impugns motives before the fact. But Homeland Security partnerships must be 

close, trusted, and non-public. Could the Washington Redskins or any professional 

team succeed if their members were not allowed to get together to plan and train 

out of sight of their opponents when needed? 

We cannot do away with protection against fraud and abuse. But the close teamwork and rapid response requirements of Homeland Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection demand high levels of interpersonal trust that can only be developed through frequent interaction, including informal, relationship building interaction. To accomplish this and still protect against fraud and abuse, I believe that 

we will need to replace the rigid rules and bureaucratically slow exception handling 

processes with alternative systems that provide strong, independent oversight to detect, report, halt and punish fraud and abuse but encourage true partnership, trusted relationships and team building, treating all participants as if they are members 

of the same organization/team, operating under the same code of ethics but free to 

form trusted and close relationships.

Examine Innovative Ways to Encourage Private Sector Active Participation 

Congress might be able to help encourage even more private sector participation 

in critical infrastructure protection through private sector bodies such as the SCCs 

and ISACs. Here are a few examples which might be worth exploring.

Value Proposition 

Congress and the DHS should work with SCCs, ISACs and other private sector 

institutions to develop a compelling value proposition with industry to further im-
88

prove our working relationship for critical infrastructure protection and expand improved cyber security behavior. Not doing so is contrary to our national and homeland security interest. Many companies and other private sector institutions understand this. But many still do not. We need to make the value proposition compelling 

so that the vast majority—and all the critical ones—understand and pro-actively 

participate.

Congressional and Executive Support for SCCs and ISACs 

Carefully examine the positive role that DHS and Administration executive leadership could and should play in encouraging sector members to participate in their 

respective SCCs and ISACs. Private sector leaders responded to previous Government requests and have expended significant resources to create the partnership 

model organizations requested. But when it comes to encouraging sector members 

to join those bodies and actively participate in them, Government executives have 

been strangely absent or quiet for the most part. Also, in some cases they have 

reached out through other organizations not formed for these specific purposes. The 

net effect of their silence or misaimed outreach is contrary to the very goals they 

envisioned achieving when they asked the private sector to form ISACs and SCCs. 

Simply put, they should always turn first to the organizations they asked us to 

form to fit their model for working with them. And they should not be shy about 

encouraging sector members to join those organizations (ISACs and SCCs), even to 

the extent of expressing unhappiness with important sector ‘‘core’’ players who fail 

to do so. If there are any rules in place that impede such demonstrable support, 

they should be revisited swiftly and decisively.

Technical and Operational Support 

The ultimate goal of our partnership model is to create an infrastructure environment that is intended to deter attacks as much as feasible and operationally prepared to respond, recover and reconstitute to any attack or emergency as rapidly 

and effectively as feasible. Operational preparedness and success will depend ultimately on a partnership that is focused on operations even more than on policy. The 

recommendations I have made for a jointly manned, National Crisis Coordination 

Center (NCCC) will help significantly to shift to an operational focus. But it will 

also take working out and testing our individual and collective Concepts of Operations (CONOPS), constantly improving them so our operational metrics continually 

improve. The best solutions may call for cross sector or even government to industry 

provisioning of technical and operational support. For example, DHS support to 

operational ISACs might be appropriate. Operational readiness and improvement 

should be one of our highest priorities.

Congressional Charters 

Examine the Potential Value of a Congressional Charter for established SCCs and 

ISACs. If a National Crisis Coordination Center is supported, consider a Congressional Charter for it as well. Congressional Charters would give Congress enhanced 

visibility into their functioning and would allow for periodic GAO audit. They would 

also help many SCCs and ISACs recruit the broad membership and participation 

they need from their sectors.

Procurement 

Consider using procurement in DHS, or even government-wide, as a carrot for 

greater private sector participation and proactive, operational commitments.

Congressional Awareness and Education 

Finally, to help prepare you for the increasingly complex issues of the Cyber Security Age, I suggest you consider forming a bipartisan House caucus for cyber security (IT and communications) to provide a forum for educating staff and members 

on the relevant issues. 

ATTACHMENT

SUMMARY OF A FEW KEY CYBER SECURITY AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS PARTNERSHIPS

AND KEY INITIATIVES

NSTAC 

President Ronald Reagan created the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) by Executive Order 12382 in September 1982. Composed 

of up to 30 industry chief executives representing many of the major communications and network service providers and information technology, finance, and aerospace companies, the NSTAC provides industry-based advice and expertise to the 

President on issues and problems related to implementing national security and 

emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications policy. Since its inception, the 
89

NSTAC has addressed a wide range of policy and technical issues regarding communications, information systems, information assurance, critical infrastructure protection, and other NS/EP communications concerns. 

NS/EP communications enable the Government to make an immediate and coordinated response to all emergencies, whether caused by a natural disaster, such as 

a hurricane, an act of domestic terrorism, such as the Oklahoma City bombing and 

the September 11th attacks, a man-made disaster, or a cyber attack. NS/EP communications allow the President and other senior Administration officials to be continually accessible, even under stressed conditions. 

The NSTAC has addressed numerous issues in the past 24 years. A few examples 

illustrate NSTAC’s capabilities to address NS/EP communications issues in today’s 

environment: the establishment of the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC); the implementation of the Government and NSTAC Network Security Information Exchange (NSIE) process; the Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) program; Government Emergency Telecommunications Service 

(GETS) and Wireless Priority Service (WPS); and the examination of the NS/EP implications of Internet technologies and the vulnerabilities of converged networks. 

These accomplishments are briefly described below.

NCC—From ‘‘NSTAC Report to the President on the National Coordinating Center,’’ 

May 10, 2006

The NCC was established to fulfill a critical need for a national coordinating 

mechanism to organize and manage the initiation and restoration of NS/EP communications services. This need was identified at the dawn of the divestiture of AT&T 

and the height of the Cold War. As Government increasingly relied on commercial 

communications services and no longer had a single point of contact (POC) for the 

industry, Government needed a joint industry and Government-staffed organization 

to coordinate emergency requests. The NCC became operational on January 3, 1984. 

The National Coordinating Center (NCC) has been the hub for coordinating the 

initiation and restoration of national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) 

communications services for more than 20 years—supporting four administrations 

and evolving as threats and national priorities have shifted. Following the September 

11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the NCC proved its value to the Nation as it supported 

the restoration of communications in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas. The 

NCC has also repeatedly shown its strength during hurricane recovery efforts, including Hurricane Katrina. 

. . .the NSTAC recommended designating the NCC as the Information Sharing 

and Analysis Center (ISAC) for telecommunications in 1999. 

With the establishment of the Department of the Homeland Security (DHS) and the 

transfer of the National Communications System (NCS) to the new department in 

2003, the NCC also has made the transition to DHS. 

The primary mission of the NCC throughout its history has been to coordinate the 

restoration and provisioning of communications services for NS/EP users during 

natural disasters, armed conflicts, and terrorist attacks. Significant events such as 

the Hinsdale, Illinois, central office fire, the Oklahoma terrorist bombing, the events 

of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina have proved the value of this partnership. During a crisis, Government personnel communicate NS/EP requirement priorities to industry, and industry representatives assist the Government in developing 

situational awareness by providing restoration status information. Having the representatives in one location ensures a smoother restoration effort. The NCC’s all-hazards response depends on the flexible application of NCS resources, such as its priority service programs (e.g., Government Emergency Telecommunications Service, 

Wireless Priority Service, and Telecommunications Service Priority [TSP] Program). 

During day-to-day operations, NCC members work on plans and share information 

on vulnerabilities and threats to the telecom infrastructure. Planning activities include developing lessons learned following events, creating comprehensive service restoration plans, planning for continuity of operations (COOP)/continuity of Government (COG) activities, and participating in exercise planning. In addition, the NCC 

works with international emergency response partners, including the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and 

Canada, on crisis communications and mutual assistance. 

In 2000, the NCC was designated the ISAC for telecommunications per the guidance in the 1998 Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD-63), Protecting America’s 

Critical Infrastructures, which encouraged the private sector to establish ISACs to 

‘‘serve as the mechanism for gathering, analyzing, appropriately sanitizing and disseminating private sector information.’’ As part of the ISAC mission, the NCC collects 

and shares information about threats, vulnerabilities, intrusions, and anomalies 

from the communications industry, Government, and other sources. Analysis on in-
90

formation is performed with the goal of averting or mitigating impact on the communications infrastructure. 

The NCC has historically been an operational element and as such does not fall 

under provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). A June 1, 1983, letter to the NCS from Assistant Attorney General William F. Baxter discussed issues 

of incident management and information sharing for the proposed National Coordinating Mechanism (NCM) (which became the NCC) and noted that such an organization posed no significant antitrust problems. 

. . .Since the transition to DHS, the NCC has been involved in additional critical 

infrastructure protection (CIP) activities. As part of the implementation of Homeland 

Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 7, DHS is tasked with identifying, 

prioritizing, and protecting the Nation’s critical infrastructure. Through the NCC, 

the NCS often coordinates data calls on the identification of assets, coordinates planning for national special security events (NSSE), and provides impact analyses. In 

the future, NCC industry members may be asked to further assist in the risk assessment process as detailed in the sector’s Sector-Specific Plan.

NSIE—From ‘‘GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING THE NATIONAL COORDINATING 

CENTER FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE NETWORK SECURITY INFORMATION EXCHANGES,’’ PREPARED BY THE OFFICE OF THE MANAGER, 

NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM, MARCH 2001

In April 1990, the Chairman of the National Security Council’s (NSC) Policy Coordinating Committee—National Security Telecommunications and Information 

Systems requested the Manager, NCS, identify what action should be taken by 

Government and industry to protect critical national security telecommunications 

from the ‘‘hacker’’ threat. . . .In response to the NSC tasking, the Manager, NCS 

and the NSTAC established separate, but closely coordinated, NSIEs. In May 

1991, the NSIE charters were finalized, and Government departments and agencies and NSTAC companies designated their NSIE representatives, chairmen, 

and vice-chairmen. The first joint meeting of the Government and NSTAC 

NSIEs was held in June 1991. 

The Government and NSTAC NSIEs meet jointly approximately every two months. 

The NSIEs provide a working forum to identify issues involving penetration or manipulation of software and databases affecting NS/EP telecommunications. The 

NSIEs share information with the objectives of: • Learning more about intrusions into and vulnerabilities affecting the 

PN—Developing recommendations for reducing network security 

vulnerabilities 

• Assessing network risks affecting network assurance • Acquiring threat and threat mitigation information • Providing expertise to the NSTAC on which to base network security recommendations to the President. 

The success of the NSIEs is based in large part on the establishment of 

trusted interpersonal relationships. Participants—government and industry—must hold requisite security clearances and sign individual non-disclosure agreements. The organizations sending participants to the NSIEs must 

also sign organizational non-disclosure agreements.

TSP—From NCS Web site 

Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) provides service vendors with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate for prioritizing service requests by identifying those services critical to NS/EP. A telecommunications 

service with a TSP assignment is assured of receiving full attention by the service vendor before a non-TSP service.

From briefing ‘‘NCS Roles During the Attack on America,’’ Deputy Manager, 

NCS, August 9, 2002

Nearly 40,000 TSP circuits enrolled by NCS prior to 9/11 tragedy 

TSP vital in accelerating the opening of Wall Street on 9/17

Major coordination in restoration of telecommunications for Broad 

Street switches—major role to restore stock and bond markets 

NCS supported nearly 600 provisioning requests following 11 Sep 01

46 organizations (incl. FBI, FEMA , FRB, Port Authority, DoD)

GETS—From NCS Web site 

Implemented in the early 1990’s, Government Emergency Telecommunications 

Service (GETS) is an emergency phone service provided by the National Communications System (NCS) in the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Division of the Department of Homeland Security. GETS supports federal, 

state, local, tribal, industry, and non-governmental organization (NGO) per-
91

sonnel in performing their National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/

EP) missions. GETS provides emergency access and priority processing in the 

local and long distance segments of the Public Switched Telephone Network 

(PSTN). It is intended to be used in an emergency or crisis situation when the 

PSTN is congested and the probability of completing a call over normal or other 

alternate telecommunication means has significantly decreased.

From briefing ‘‘NCS Roles During the Attack on America,’’ Deputy Manager, 

NCS, August 9, 2002

The AT&T long distance network carried a record 431 million call attempts on 

Sept. 11, 101 million more than the previous high-traffic day. 

Massive congestion in WTC & Pentagon areas 

Over 10,000 GETS calls in WTC/Pentagon areas 

Over 95% completion rate—Highest calling in first 48 hours 

GETS PIN Cards: 

Over 1,500 key personnel made GETS calls 

Over 20,000 GETS PIN cards issued following events of September 11th

WPS—From NCS Web site 

Wireless Priority Service (WPS), is the wireless complement to GETS. In the 

early 1990’s, the OMNCS initiated efforts based on NSTAC recommendations, to 

develop and implement a nationwide cellular priority access capability in support of national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) telecommunications and pursued a number of activities to improve cellular call completion 

during times of network congestion. Subsequently, as a result of a petition filed 

by the NCS in October 1995, the FCC released a Second Report and Order 

[FCC–00–242, July 13, 2000] (R&O) on wireless Priority Access Service (PAS). 

The R&O offers Federal liability relief for NS/EP wireless carriers if the service 

is implemented in accordance with uniform operating procedures. The FCC 

made PAS voluntary, found it to be in the public interest, and defined five priority levels for NS/EP wireless calls.

Wireless network congestion was widespread on September 11, 2001. With wireless traffic demand estimated at up to 10 times normal in the affected areas and 

double nationwide, the need for wireless priority service became a critical and 

urgent National requirement. In response, the National Security Council requested that the NCS deploy a nationwide priority access queuing system for 

wireless networks.

From briefing ‘‘NCS Roles During the Attack on America,’’ Deputy Manager, 

NCS, August 9, 2002: 

Verizon Wireless experienced a 50 to 100 percent increase nationwide. Wireless networks remained near saturation in NY through September 28th. 

Cingular Wireless’ attempted calls ballooned by 400 percent in Washington 

and 1000 percent in its N.J. Switching Center

PDD 63 and Sector Coordinators 

Presidential Decision Directive 63 (PDD 63) was released in May 1998. It ordered 

the development of sector-specific critical infrastructure protection plans and established the role of private industry sector coordinators. The Information & Communications Sector as then designated under PDD 63, had four organizations sharing 

the sector coordinator role: the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA); the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA); and the United States Telecom Association (USTA). 

Important early contributions of the Sector coordinators included 

• developing internal sector awareness 

• organizing voluntary sector participation in planning 

• leading the way in the formation of Information Sharing and Analysis 

Centers for Information Technology and Telecommunications 

• developing the I&C Sector National Strategy Input for Critical 

Infrastructure and Cyberspace Security, May 2002

PCIS 

The Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security (PCIS) consists generally of 

the leadership (usually the Chairs) of the organized Sector Coordinating Councils 

for the various critical infrastructures. The PCIS coordinates cross sector critical infrastructure protection interests and initiatives within the private sector and with 

the Government under the partnership model described within the National Infrastructure Protection Plan

NCSP (Santa Clara Dec 03 Summit, TFs, reports, Wye I, Wye II) 
92

The National Cyber Security Partnership (NCSP) combines representatives 

from government, industry and academia working together to harden the nation’s cyber defenses. The partnership provides a forum, structure and common 

agenda for interdisciplinary, cross-industry information exchange with government. Lead organizations of the partnership are: the Business Software Alliance, Information Technology Association of America, TechNet and the U.S. 

Chamber of Commerce. The public-private partnership was formed during the 

National Cyber Security Summit on December 3, 2003, in Santa Clara, California, which aimed to gather cyber security experts across disciplines to embark on a work program to develop recommendations for implementing key 

challenges posed in the 2003 National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace. The partnership established five task forces comprised of cyber security experts from industry, academia and government. Each task force was led by two or more cochairs. The NCSP-sponsoring trade associations act as secretariats in managing 

task force work flow and logistics. The task forces included: 

Awareness for Home Users and Small Businesses 

Cyber Security Early Warning 

Corporate Governance 

Security Across the Software Development Life Cycle 

Technical Standards and Common Criteria 

The resulting task force recommendations in 2004 were provided to DHS. Many 

are still valid an valuable. 

In follow-up to the National Cyber Security Summit and the reports of the task 

forces, DHS’ National Cyber Security Division hosted a government and private sector exchange at the Wye River Conference Center in Maryland in January 2005. A 

second follow-up exchange (‘‘Wye II’’) was hosted by the NCSP in Annapolis, MD, 

in September 2005. Many of the original Summit Task Forces’ Recommendations 

continue to be brought up as potentially valuable.

CIPAC—extracted from DHS sources 

In March 2006, the Department of Homeland Security established the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) to facilitate effective coordination between Federal infrastructure protection programs with the infrastructure 

protection activities of the private sector and of state, local, territorial and tribal 

governments. 

The CIPAC represents a partnership between government and critical infrastructure/key resource (CI/KR) owners and operators and provides a forum in which they 

can engage in a broad spectrum of activities to support and coordinate critical infrastructure protection. 

CIPAC membership will encompass CI/KR owner/operator institutions and their 

designated trade or equivalent organizations that are identified as members of existing Sector Coordinating Councils (SCCs). It is also includes representatives from 

Federal, state, local and tribal governmental entities identified as members of existing Government Coordinating Councils (GCCs) for each sector

IDWG—extracted from DHS sources 

The Internet Disruption Working Group (IDWG) is a DHS hosted, informal gathering of industry and government Internet technical operation experts who collaboratively explore vulnerability issues and identify recommended actions to address 

them. The IDWG is beginning to establish important, trusted interpersonal relationships amongst government and industry technical experts. The IDWG was established by NCSD in partnership with the National Communications System (NCS), 

in response to security concerns surrounding the growing dependency of critical infrastructures and national security and emergency preparedness users on the Internet for communications, operational functions, and essential services. 

The IDWG’s near-term objectives are to improve the resiliency and recovery of 

Internet functions in the event of a cyber-related incident of national significance; 

work with both government and private sector stakeholders to identify and 

prioritize protective measures necessary to prevent and respond to major Internet 

disruptions; and assess the operational dependencies of critical infrastructure sectors on the Internet. The 2005 IDWG Forum identified specific areas for action by 

both government and private sector stakeholders, including risk assessments, information sharing, protective measures, research and development, and Internet development issues. The IDWG is engaging with both public and private stakeholders to 

address these action items. The IDWG also plans to hold future forums and tabletop 

exercises, including an IDWG Tabletop Exercise, on June 15, 2006, to maintain both 

a pulse of the issues and an understanding of existing capabilities.

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much for your testimony. 
93

Now, we would hear from Mr. David Barron, the chairman of the 

Telecommunications Sector Coordination Council. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID M. BARRON, CHAIR, 

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR COORDINATING COUNCIL 

Mr. BARRON. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and fellow members 

of the subcommittee. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here with 

you today and I thank you for the opportunity to discuss this very 

important topic, the future of cybersecurity and telecommunications. 

I am David Barron. I am assistant vice president for federal relations and national security for Bell South, here in our Washington 

Office, but I am appearing today as the chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council. My testimony reflects my personal views as the chair of the council and not the views of Bell 

South. 

Sector-specific planning and coordination are addressed to private sector and government coordinating councils that are established for each sector through the national infrastructure protection plan. 

Sector coordinating councils are comprised of private sector entities, representatives. Government coordinating councils are comprised of representatives from government agencies, state, local 

and tribal entities. 

Established in 2005, the Communications Sector Coordinating 

Council has over 25 owners and operators and associations represented on the council today and we anticipate adding new members, as we continue to broaden our membership. 

While Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 defined our 

sector as telecommunications, we in the industry feel that communications is a more representative title and that represents our diverse membership more accurately. 

Our membership today includes wire line, wireless, satellite, 

equipment manufacturers and Internet service providers, among 

others. We are also actively trying to expand the membership to include cable telephony, emergency service providers, and broadcasters, so that the Communications Sector Coordinating Council 

truly represents the breadth of this dynamic sectors. 

One of the sectors we call, as Guy said, the millisecond sector because of the nature of how our sector works. 

The Communications Sector Coordinating Council is currently 

engaged in a wide variety of activities not only with our government colleagues, but also with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as other sector coordinating councils on a number of 

initiatives the foremost of which, and you have heard about it 

today, is the creation of the sector-specific plan. 

We are well into that and we are anxious to get that project finished as soon as possible. 

In addition to the sector-specific plan, the Communications Sector Coordinating Council is engaged in several other important activities and I think the point is, as Guy said, we are not on hold. 

We are working every day to ensure the best security we can for 

the nation. 
94

These other activities include pandemic flu planning, national coordinating center, regional coordination concepts, post–Katrina 

issues, such as access, credentialing and emergency responder status as it relates to the Stafford Act, emergency wireless protocols, 

and many other activities. 

Finally, the world of communications often has considerable 

interaction and interdependencies with information technology, another critical infrastructure identified through HSPD–7. As such, 

the Communications Sector Coordinating Council has established a 

close working relationship with the Information Technology Sector 

Coordinating Council on issues of mutual concern. 

In September, the Communications and Information Technology 

Councils will be holding the first ever joint meeting with all four 

councils present, both communications, IT and the government 

counterparts, to discuss cross-sector issues, such as the creation of 

sector-specific plans that are complementary and support of each 

other. 

With the support of Under Secretary Foresman, the assistant 

secretary for infrastructure protection, Bob Steffen, has overseen 

many of these initiatives while in the acting assistant secretary for 

cybersecurity and telecommunications position and while serving 

as the manager of the national communications systems, known as 

the NCS. 

We are pleased with the progress that has been made, but the 

industry would welcome additional focus brought to bear by a dedicated assistant secretary for cybersecurity and telecommunications. 

Obviously, we should view all critical infrastructures and key resources defined in HSPD–7 as critically important to the nation. 

However, communications and information technology are unique 

in that they underlie and support all the other sectors. 

Each of the other sectors depends upon computer systems, voice 

networks, broadband systems, wireless networks, and countless 

other structures and services provided by the communications and 

IT communities. Those sectors are equally critical in support of the 

nation’s homeland security mission. 

While DHS has been very helpful and responsive in many of 

these matters, there are areas in which the private sector would 

specifically like to see continued progress and improvement. 

First, while the current team of leadership at DHS has done a 

good job working with the sector, the position of assistant secretary 

for cybersecurity and telecommunications remains vacant. As I 

stated earlier in my testimony, Assistant Secretary Steffen has 

done an admirable job in working with the communications and IT 

sectors, but a dedicated assistant secretary could dramatically 

strengthen this critical public-private partnership. 

Second, a clear definition of the mission needs to be established. 

What does cybersecurity and telecommunications really mean as it 

relates to national security, homeland security and emergency preparedness? In other words, what is the problem we are trying to 

solve? 

There is such a wide range of threats and vulnerabilities that a 

clear vision of the problem tied to priorities is essential. 

Third, DHS needs to clearly define roles and responsibilities for 

all of those involved in this process, and this comes back to the un-
95

derstanding of the problem and a clear strategy based on risk assessment and priorities. By clarifying who is in charge of what, 

more will be accomplished in an efficient and effective manner. 

Finally, and I think very importantly, DHS should recognize that 

the private sector is willing and fully committed to this partnership. If this framework is truly intended to be a partnership, then 

more emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring there is a trusted 

relationship between the public and private sectors, which is in the 

best interest of the nation’s security. 

For example, the national coordinating center for communications, the NCC, is a model to follow for the partnership that is 

mandated by the future. In the NCC, government and industry sit 

together every day to prepare for and to respond to events that 

threaten the nation’s communications networks. 

The NCC has had a long history of success. I think this model 

could and should be expanded to include other infrastructure, like 

information technology and electric power. 

As I close, I would like to, again, thank the subcommittee for the 

opportunity to speak today and for your support on these efforts. 

The partnership framework is incredibly valuable and continues to 

serve as a conduit for unprecedented cooperation and collaboration 

between government and private industry. 

There is room for improvement, to be sure, but the suggestions 

I have presented here today are intended to further strengthen 

those valued interactions and ensure we jointly consider to take 

steps to secure our homeland. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The statement of Mr. Barron follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID M. BARRON

Good Afternoon Mr. Chairman and fellow members of the committee. It is an 

honor to appear before you today and I thank you for the opportunity to discuss this 

very important topic, the future of cyber security and telecommunications. 

I am David Barron, Assistant Vice President for Federal Relations/National Security with BellSouth Corporation here in our Washington office, but I am appearing 

today as the Chair of the Communications Sector Coordinating Council (CSCC). My 

testimony reflects my personal views as Chairman of the CSCC and not the views 

of Bell South. 

Let me begin by giving you a brief background on the Sector Partnership Model 

and the Communications SCC in particular. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD–7) established the basis for a national coordinated approach to critical 

infrastructure protection, including the development of the National Infrastructure 

Protection Plan (NIPP) as well as the Sector Partnership Model. The NIPP defines 

the organizational structure that provides the framework for coordination of Critical 

Infrastructure and Key Resources (CI/KR) protection efforts at all levels of government, as well as within and across sectors. 

Sector-specific planning and coordination are addressed through private sector 

and government coordinating councils that are established for each sector. Sector 

Coordinating Councils (SCCs) are comprised of private sector representatives. Government Coordinating Councils (GCCs) are comprised of representatives of the Sector-Specific Agencies, other Federal departments and agencies, and state, local, and 

tribal governments. 

Established in 2005, the Communications Sector Coordinating Council has over 

25 owner/operators and associations represented on the Council and we anticipate 

adding new members as we continue to broaden our membership. While HSPD–7 

defined our sector as ‘‘Telecommunications’’, we in the industry feel that ‘‘Communications’’ is a more encompassing title that represents our diverse membership. 

Our membership today includes wireline, wireless, satellite, equipment manufacturers, and internet service providers among others. We are also actively trying to expand the membership to include cable telephony, emergency service providers and 
96

broadcasters so that our Communications Sector Coordinating Council truly represents the breadth of this dynamic sector; one of the sectors we call the ‘‘millisecond’’ sector due to the nature of how our sector works. 

The CSCC is currently engaged in a wide variety of activities not only with our 

Communications Government Coordinating Council counterparts, but also with the 

Department of Homeland Security as well as other Sector Coordinating Councils on 

a number of initiatives, foremost of which is the creation of our Sector Specific Plan. 

The NIPP base plan is supported by several Sector Specific Plans (SSPs) that provide further detail on how the critical infrastructure and key resources protection 

mission of each sector will be carried out. In late August the Communications SCC 

and GCC held a joint meeting in Washington, D.C. to coordinate on several issues, 

the most prominent of which is the development of the Sector-Specific Plan (SSP) 

as I mentioned before. The CSCC and GCC have been actively collaborating on a 

draft of the Communications SSP, with both Councils providing input and comments 

throughout the process. This effort is continuing and we are on track to submit the 

Communications SSP by the end of the year to DHS. 

In addition to the SSP, the Communications SCC is engaged in several other important activities, including Pandemic Flu planning, National Coordinating Center 

(NCC) regional coordination, post-Katrina issues such as access, credentialing, and 

emergency responder status related to the Stafford Act, emergency wireless protocols, and many other activities. 

Finally, the world of Communications often has considerable interaction and 

interdependencies with Information Technology (another critical infrastructure established by HSPD–7). As such, the Communications SCC has established a close 

relationship with the Information Technology SCC to work on issues of mutual concern. In September the Communications and Information Technology SCCs and 

GCCs will be holding the first ever Joint meeting, with all four councils present, 

to discuss cross-sector issues such as the creation of Sector Specific Plans that are 

complimentary and supportive of each other. 

With the support of Under Secretary Foresman, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Bob Stephan has overseen many of these initiatives while in 

the Acting Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications position 

and while serving as the Manager of the National Communications System (NCS). 

We are pleased with the progress that has been made. But the industry would welcome the additional focus brought to bear by a dedicated Assistant Secretary for 

Cyber Security and Telecommunications. 

Obviously, we should view all the critical infrastructures and key resources defined in HSPD–7 as critically important to the nation. However, Communications 

and Information Technology is unique in that it underlies and supports all of the 

other sectors. Each of the other sectors depend upon computer systems, voice networks, broadband systems, wireless networks, and countless other structures and 

services provided by the Communications and IT communities. As a result, Congress 

has mandated and DHS has begun implementing strategies and procedures to ensure specific emphasis on these valuable cross-sector interdependencies. For example, the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and the supporting Sector Plans are 

working very specifically to address this convergence of Communications and Information Technology into what is referred to as the Next Generation Networks. As 

this work continues, there must be a balanced approach when looking at Cyber Security and Telecommunications. Both sectors are equally critical in support of the 

Nation’s Homeland Security mission. 

While DHS has been very helpful and responsive in many of these matters, there 

are areas in which the private sector would specifically like to see continued 

progress and improvement. First, while the current team of leadership at DHS, including Under Secretary Foresman, Deputy Under Secretary Robert Zitz, and Assistant Secretary Stephan, have done an excellent job, the position of Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Telecommunications remains vacant. As I stated earlier in my testimony, Assistant Secretary Stephan has done an admirable job in 

working with the Communications and Information Technology community but a 

dedicated Assistant Secretary could dramatically strengthen this critical public/private partnership. 

Second, a clear definition of the mission needs to be established. What does Cyber 

Security and Telecommunications really mean as it relates to National Security, 

Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness? In other words, what is the problem that we are trying to solve? There is such a wide range of threats and 

vulnerabilities that a clear vision of the problem tied to priorities is essential. 

Third, DHS needs to clearly define roles and responsibilities for all of those involved in this process. Again, this comes back to the understanding of the problem 
97

and a clear strategy based on risk assessment and priorities. By clarifying who is 

in charge of what, more will be accomplished in an efficient and effective manner. 

Finally, DHS should recognize that the private sector is willing and fully committed to this partnership. If this framework is truly intended to be a partnership, 

then more emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring there is a trusted relationship 

between the public and private sectors, which is in the best interest of our Nation’s 

security. For example, the National Coordinating Center for Communications—the 

NCC—is a model to follow for the partnership that is mandated by the future. In 

the NCC, government and industry sit together everyday to prepare for and to respond to events that threaten the Nation’s communications networks. The NCC has 

had a long history of success and I think this model could and should be expanded 

to include other infrastructures like Information Technology/Cyber and Electric 

Power. The continued health and evolution of the partnership depends not only on 

private sector participation, but DHS’ s recognition of the value of that partnership 

with a commitment to work more closely with industry. 

As I close, I would like to again thank Congress for the opportunity to speak 

today and for their support in these efforts. The partnership framework is incredibly 

valuable and continues to serve as a conduit for unprecedented cooperation and collaboration between government and private industry. There is room for improvement to be sure, but the suggestions I have presented here today are intended to 

further strengthen these valued interactions and ensure we jointly continue to take 

steps to secure our homeland. 

Thank You.

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you all for your testimony. 

We will go to a round of questioning. We promised that we would 

get you out of here no later than 6:00. So we will see how long that 

takes us with the members who are here. 

Let me begin the questioning by asking you, Mr. Pelgrin, how 

would you describe the overall priority that the federal government 

has placed on cyber-related critical infrastructure protection? 

Mr. PELGRIN. I believe that they have put a high priority on it. 

I think that they definitely need to fill the assistant secretary position. But I know that even the undersecretary, that when he was 

in Virginia, was actually one of our multi-state ISAC members. 

So he, from early on, believed very much in cybersecurity. So 

from my experience, from the governmental experience, from the 

state and local government, the support that we have received, the 

direction, the cooperation with the federal government has been excellent. 

I think there is always room to improve. I think that there is always a need, both on a state and local government side, to move 

this forward. I am a big believer that this is to build it as you go 

and it really is a time to make sure that we have very strict 

deliverables and get those deliverables executed. 

So from a priority perspective, I think that that badly, by not 

having the assistant secretary position filled, taints all the good 

work that they are doing and they are doing a lot of good work. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Kurtz, of the six points that you have made, 

the first, I noted, was lead, lead, lead. 

Is that a suggestion that the department is not leading at the 

present time? 

Mr. KURTZ. It would be a suggestion that they are not leading. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Are they compromised not leading because of the 

absence of a leadership position being filled? 

Mr. KURTZ. I think so. Certainly, the assistant secretary of 

cybersecurity and telecommunications will provide some leadership. 

It is not a panacea, though. I think we have to go higher up the 

line in the department, as well, to ensure that they are paying attention to the issue at the most senior levels. 
98

I commend Under Secretary Foresman for spending the time 

today to address this issue up here on the Hill. He was at a committee meeting earlier today, and it is very good to see him here. 

Mr. LUNGREN. And I got a deliverable. I got a letter from the secretary answering my questions, from my letter of July 5. Maybe we 

ought to have these meetings more often. 

Mr. KURTZ. If I can, I think it is symptomatic of across the federal government. We have, if you will, a reluctance among senior 

officials to engage on cyber and I think one of the real reasons it 

it is not visual. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, you can’t feel 

it. 

When you go into a cyber? 

Mr. LUNGREN. You can’t show it to your constituents. 

Mr. KURTZ. You can’t show it to your constituents, as well. You 

go into a cyber knock and you look at it and, quite frankly, it can 

be pretty boring. But this logical system, this nervous system that 

we depend upon controls every facet of our lives. 

And just because we can’t see it and taste it and smell it doesn’t 

mean we shouldn’t be paying attention to it. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Kurtz, who is further along, in your estimate, 

the private sector or the federal government, in terms of 

cybersecurity? 

Mr. KURTZ. I think there are elements of the private sector that 

are quite far along. I would highlight the banking and finance industry. The banking and finance industry has brought incredible 

sophistication to this space. 

Can they do better? Sure. I think the energy, the oil and gas sector is getting more serious about this. I think Doug Bond’s program, Doug at least was behind a little bit ago, the logic program 

that they are doing on working on SCADA control systems and improving the security is a fantastic program and it is a partner program. 

So there is work under way in that area. Frankly, I think the 

other sectors, many of the other sectors have a long way to go. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I mean, if we are going to have a team in this, 

you look at the football analogy, you have got to have both the offense and the defense and the special teams all working together. 

I look at this as a partnership opportunity and obligation, private 

sector-public sector, in part, because 85–90 percent of the critical 

infrastructure is owned not by the government, but by the private 

sector. 

I would assume that if we have got the cyber world involved in 

critical infrastructure, that we would have that same sort of percentage. So we have got to be firming up both sides. 

And to Mr. Copeland and Mr. Barron, thank you for your testimony and thank you for the work that you are doing. You are 

doing double-duty, too. I mean, you are doing the work for your 

companies and you are also doing the work in these coordinating 

councils. 

A general question to the two of you and then maybe if we get 

time for a second round, I can go into more specifics. 

How well is the concept of the coordinating councils working? 

You are putting a lot of effort into it. Obviously, you think it is 

worthwhile, because you are both still doing it. 
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You are getting the cooperation of not only your companies, but 

like companies. But is government listening? Is government really 

acting as a partner with you in this coordinating councils? 

Do you feel that your time is well spent? And has the experience 

been such that it is encouraging to have other companies become 

involved and commit their people to the time that is necessary to 

actually make a contribution? 

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. Chairman, as a general observation, of 

course, our sector coordinating councils are just getting started. So 

the answer is it remains to be seen how they will survive in the 

long run, but I am very excited about how they are starting out. 

The intention was that they would provide broad representation 

for their sectors to work with their government counterparts, to attack a variety of issues, many of which you have heard discussed 

here today. 

I have to say, even as we were going through our formative process, we were already working with our government colleagues, 

doing, for example, detailed word-by-word reviews on the national 

infrastructure protection plan. 

So we had that kind of interaction with them. The writing team 

that we have formed and which Paul co-chairs for us, that is working on the sector-specific plan, is made up of both industry and government representatives. So I am very positive on that. 

Is there room for progress? Yes. I am very concerned that we 

need to quickly move on to reaching out across the country to the 

many different, some very key players who need to become aware 

of the sector coordinating council and become involved in it, as 

well. 

When I spoke to the recommendation of encouragement and looking to our government colleagues, both the executive branch and 

Congress, for that kind of encouragement, you can do some of that 

when you are back in your districts and you are talking to executives. 

You can build some of that encouragement, where appropriate, 

into legislation, where there might be an opportunity. I would like 

to see more of the senior executives in both the executive branch 

and Congress sending letters to the senior executives in the private 

sector, saying, ‘‘Look, this is an important activity. It will ultimately bring value to your company, help provide general protection to you, protect you in the mission or business services that you 

offer to your clients, and it will help the nation.’’

And even beyond that, because the whole issue of information security and cybersecurity is inextricably intertwined with many of 

our closest allies, but most particularly with our Canadian allies 

because of the border that we share and the way that our infrastructures happen to built and intertwined very, very closely. 

So it is going to have international impact, as well, for them to 

participate. 

I have watched with pleasure as some motivating factors have 

creeped into things that are extremely useful. So, for example, the 

federal financial institutions examination council has now built 

into their guidelines for examining information security and financial institutions a requirement that whoever provides their information technology and communications must be participating in an 
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ISAC, and that could be the company itself or it could be an 

outsourced company like mine that may provide those kind of services to them. 

So that is positive reinforcement for joining those institutions 

and working together to solve these common problems. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. 

Mr. Barron? 

Mr. BARRON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the sector coordinating council concept is working very well. 

Telecommunications and communications, in general, has a longstanding history with the government through the national communications system and the NCC. We have been partners with them 

for well over 20 years and there is a close relationship there. 

It has performed very well, 9/11, Katrina, I mean, we have been 

there and we have had a lot of success in the face of disasters. So 

I think that relationship and that partnership is, without question, 

there through the NCS. 

The key is, I think, trying to turn the sector-specific plans from 

something that you are required to do to something that you want 

to do and we are making progress there and bringing in what I 

call, Mr. Chairman, nontraditional players into the Communications Sector Coordinating Council, cable telephony, those kind of 

folks who haven’t traditionally been involved, but they are very 

critical players, are now getting engaged and we are very pleased 

with that, and think the NCS and the DHS folks are helping us 

with that. 

So I think the partnership is working. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from Washington is recognized. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Mr. Kurtz, when did you serve on the White House staff? 

Mr. KURTZ. I joined the White House staff in 1999, before the 

millennium, at the very end of the Clinton administration and 

stayed on into early 2004 in the Bush administration. 

Mr. DICKS. Are there people at the White House doing the kind 

of work today that you were doing at that time? 

Mr. KURTZ. Not on a full-time basis. 

Mr. DICKS. Part-time? 

Mr. KURTZ. Yes. Certainly, there are people there within the National Security Council, Homeland Security Council and the Office 

of Technology and Policy who are spending some time on this issue. 

Mr. DICKS. You described a little bit the—but flesh out why you 

think this has been downplayed in this administration. Why are 

they not taking this as seriously as the previous administration 

did? Obviously, you had the millennium, the 2000 thing, which was 

a big factor and had everybody’s attention on it. 

Mr. KURTZ. My own personal view is the Clinton administration, 

toward the end of the Clinton administration, they were, in fact, 

paying attention to this, because that is when we started to see the 

problems surface. The massive denial of service attacks in 2000 

prompted an event with the president. 

However, President Bush, when he first started off, one of the 

first briefings he took was on cybersecurity. When I was on staff 

there, it was one of the very first briefings he had and he stood up 
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the critical infrastructure protection board, which, in turn, produced the national strategy to secure cybersecurity in 2003. 

I think after that strategy was issued, that is when we had the 

change. Under the strategy, the vast majority of the work was to 

go over to the Department of Homeland Security. I believe that decision made good sense, because we were standing up the department at that time. 

However, the department had massive issues on its hands and 

in my written testimony we talk about the preoccupation, and understandable preoccupation with the physical threats, threats to 

kill people, blow up buildings. That is understandable. 

However, several years down the line, it is hard to defend that 

and especially in the context that we have increased threats and 

increased vulnerabilities and more dependency on this information 

infrastructure. 

I also think the intervening events for the department have been, 

obviously, Hurricane Katrina. Katrina took a lot of energy out of 

the department. Really, though, quite frankly, I am out of excuses. 

The time is now to have higher level attention within the federal 

government to this issue. 

And I would argue, and I talked about this a little bit this morning, that DHS needs to assert more leadership, but I would also 

argue that the White House needs to step up more. 

Mr. DICKS. When you say leadership, what do you mean by that? 

When I look at it, either you are talking about resources, as an appropriator, or you are talking about regulation or you are talking 

about bringing together people to work together to try to understand each other’s problems and to convince each of these sectors 

that they have got to do something themselves to protect their own 

cybersecurity. 

Mr. KURTZ. I would argue, in a sense, all four of those issues that 

you mentioned, with the caveat around the third one, regulation. 

By leadership, I mean—

Mr. DICKS. I know you are afraid of regulation, because of your 

clients. 

Mr. KURTZ. But leadership, I mean—

Mr. DICKS. If you don’t get the job done, and this goes back all 

the way back to the first days of the ICC and railroads. I mean, 

you know, at some point, the government has to step in and say 

you have got to do it. 

Mr. KURTZ. But by leadership, I mean a senior individual who 

is consistently focused on a problem. One of the reasons why we 

have the national strategy to secure cyberspace, and I still think 

it has good standing in the private sector, is we had a very senior 

individual push that through. 

Mr. LUNGREN. How about an assistant secretary for 

cybersecurity and telecommunications? 

Mr. KURTZ. I think it certainly helps, but I do argue that we 

need to have more senior involvement on a regular basis by others 

within the department and other agencies, as well. 

I think as far as resources, yes, resources, though, follow leadership when you can establish the priorities and programs that we 

need to pursue. Regulation in a limited degree, when we know we 

have had market failure, and there is an opportunity before the 
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Congress now to pass legislation to secure sensitive personal information. 

There are multiple bills under consideration up here and I do 

think that is an important step forward that ought to be paid attention to. 

Mr. DICKS. Privacy, obviously, is a very important issue. But, 

again, you think maybe having somebody else at the White House 

staff who is on the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. 

Mr. KURTZ. The decision to move it over to the Department of 

Homeland Security was correct and stands true today. 

Mr. DICKS. But it was correct that they picked up the ball and 

did something with it, but so far they haven’t done that. 

Mr. KURTZ. Let me give a practical example. As we develop the 

IT sector-specific plan, we have been working very closely with our 

colleagues on a working level at the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, we have quite a good relationship. 

But what is absent is that we don’t have other agencies at a 

more senior level participating and only within the last week or so 

have we gotten people at the White House to, if you will, tune in 

more to this problem. 

The reason why, I think, is that there are some very complex policy questions that need to be resolved that cross jurisdictions, that 

cross agencies. An example, in Hurricane, Katrina, ultimately, the 

president turned to the Department of Defense to help us in the 

response to Hurricane Katrina. 

If we have a massive disruption in the information infrastructure, DHS is going to play a lead coordinating role, but you can be 

darn sure that DOD is going to care and the FCC is going to care. 

And what would happen in that instance is you would have probably not a total Internet blackout, but you would probably have 

very limited bandwidth available, which means information going 

across the Internet would need to be prioritized. 

All right, so who is first? Does DOD take precedence? Does the 

financial community take precedence? Obviously, in the context of 

a larger scale disaster, first responders, hospitals, medical institutions, we haven’t come close to making those decisions. 

That is why I argue that we have to have more senior level input 

into this process. An assistant secretary can certainly help queue 

up those issues for more senior people to ultimately make those decisions. That is where the assistant secretary is critical, as he or 

she can work across federal agencies to queue up these decisions. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

And the gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SOUDER. I thought that was a very interesting discussion, because we keep hearing leadership without specifics. But you put a 

finger on that it is cross-jurisdictional, because, in effect, if the secretary of homeland security and the Department of Defense are in 

an argument, what kind of official, short of the president or vice 

president, is going to be able to referee that. 

There isn’t going to be a national security advisor or a lower 

level staff and you have got, arguably, the two biggest agencies in 

jurisdictional tussles. 
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Let me come back to a variation of the question I asked earlier, 

and the answer was there is government enforcement and there is 

private sector enforcement and insurance was mentioned. 

I was kind of trying to make a list in my head. What would be 

the government incentives to fix this? And, basically, other than altruism and a desire to help the American system, which is important and I am not arguing isn’t a motivation, but it basically comes 

down to fear of loss of your job and career ruining. 

In the private sector, the incentives are somewhat different. Has 

there been any court case that has established a liability of, if you 

haven’t plugged a certain hole on cybersecurity, that you can have 

a massive fee on your firm? 

Mr. KURTZ. The most obvious example that comes to my mind is 

the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission’s actions over the past 

year and a half, where, in three cases, there were three retailers, 

separate events—well, two retailers and a data broker who did not 

take adequate steps to secure sensitive personal information. 

Those entities involved knew that they had problems and didn’t 

attend to them. And in one case in particular, the FTC levied a $14 

million fine. 

There have been subsequent cases and I think all of them have 

been less than $14 million. That is a relatively new development. 

Mr. SOUDER. Because that will certainly affect insurance rates on 

everyone and the question is how to fairly disburse that, then, because your weakest links are going to be driving up the insurance 

rates on those who are actually investing, because the catastrophic 

costs drive up costs. 

You also have potential loss of sales to any company that basically gets penetrated, because people say this isn’t a safe place, or 

a financial institution. If it is others, you have the potential restoring costs to that, which the federal government would have, too, if 

we had damages in a facility that we run. 

We also have the absolute wiping out of a brand name, in the 

sense of your company could be destroyed. There are multiple private sector things. 

Why do you think, with all those pressures on the private sector, 

that the private sector, particularly given these kind of cases, isn’t 

ramping up at a faster rate? 

At the federal government, we react to problems. We need to be 

better at preempting. Certainly, Katrina and 9/11, voters want to 

know that they have every single bag—I mean, in this committee 

we debate this—want to have every single bag checked multiples 

times and this and that we put so much money in there that we 

are not dealing with cybersecurity. 

We have X amount of money. That is risk assessment, ramping 

up, and the general public is reacting off of what happened in the 

past, to ramp up that and we are missing some bigger risks. 

Part of my question would be, as the private sector, clearly, has 

multiple risks here, why aren’t they ramping up more? Is it that 

the guys at the margin who aren’t making as much money and 

don’t have the ability to do the costs are the ones not ramping up? 

Mr. KURTZ. I think that that last point is an important point. I 

think there are elements in the private sector, as I said earlier, 

that are taking this issue seriously, because if they experience a 
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loss, it has a real impact on their business, their customers, their 

market share. 

Mr. SOUDER. Can I ask you? Because my time is about—let me 

ask you, then. Given the assumption that you are saying, that if 

you have the ability, you understand the risk and you are doing it. 

If it is the group—if our weakest link destroys our biggest link, 

in other words, you get into our electrical grid, whether it is in 

Canada or the United States, you are wrecked. If the weakest link, 

unless we have these firewalls that shut you off you are going to 

wreck everybody else around you. 

If the financial market incentive isn’t there for our weakest link, 

do we have a choice, other than the regulatory side? 

Mr. KURTZ. I think, first of all, we need to pursue those incentives. I don’t think we are at the point yet where we can say that 

the market has failed for all those industries who haven’t necessarily taken it seriously. 

Mr. SOUDER. Are there tax incentive type things that we could 

do to accelerate that? 

Mr. KURTZ. I am certainly not going to say no to the idea of a 

tax incentive. I think we ought to explore that. But I think the insurance market is something interesting, because the reason why 

the insurance community, as I understand it, the reason why the 

insurance community cannot write as much insurance in this space 

as they would like is that there are, if you will, no common standards that they can base risk upon. 

In other words, if I know X firm has done the following 10 

things, that I have a reasonable understanding that a lot of other 

firms are going to follow, as well, and I can have that certified in 

some manner, self-certification or third-party certification, then I 

am going to feel, as a insurance person, and I have no background 

in this area, though, I would feel, as an insurance person, it is a 

better risk. I could write insurance in that area. 

The problem is we don’t really have that nexus now in the federal government between places like the Department of Commerce 

and the Department of Homeland Security to look at these issues. 

If I can, the fascinating detail, I think, is currently, despite our 

dependence upon the information infrastructure, we have no federal agency today that is tracking the costs of cyber attacks. We 

have no one at the Department of Commerce, no one who is, if you 

will—we have all sorts of statistics as to how well our economy is 

doing, how our labor force is doing, how productive we are. 

But when it comes down to understanding the costs of cyber attacks, the cost of disruptions, and, granted, it is a difficult problem 

to solve, no one is tracking that today. 

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say, too, that in the 

GAO testimony, some of these things are out there, but they are 

usually way back in the reports or they do not put this clearly, but 

there is information in here about the slammer worm taking a nuclear power plant down, their security monitoring system, for 5 

hours. 

Somebody did a movie on that. I mean, our whole nuclear policy 

is based on that Jane Fonda movie. One movie and all of a sudden 

cybersecurity changes. Similar, that in here about? 
105

Mr. LUNGREN. Are you suggesting Hollywood can make 

cybersecurity sexy? 

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. And TV, in other words, when you look at 

the—if you are airline flights are canceled, your automatic teller 

machine failed, and network outages, if people knew what actually 

happened, it is scary. 

And part of the problem, the way we respond is that, hey, we run 

every 2 years, the Constitution made us basically weather vanes 

and somebody has got to be blowing the weather. 

And part of the problem we have in homeland security is we are 

charging around that way and cybersecurity has to become—the 

danger has to become more sexy to the general public. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentleman for his comments. 

And now I would recognize someone who I would never call a 

weather vane, the gentlelady from Houston. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I will take that in the spirit that it is offered 

and I will wonder about the spirit. 

Mr. KURTZ. He meant it as a compliment, I think. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I meant an independent thinker is what I meant. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I said I would take it as such. 

I am going to go with Mr. Souder’s passion and continue at his 

level, which is where I stopped off, which is this sense of urgency 

that is not gripping some of the segments of homeland security as 

I think it deserves. 

And so I am going to go back to you, Mr. Kurtz, and then Mr. 

Pelgrin, because as we look at the tragedy of terrorist acts, we 

know that Washington is certainly a target, but so are our notable 

areas of high risk, from New York to California. 

And, of course, I happen to be a high risk proponent, but I do 

believe it is important to translate information so that all of the 

homeland can be secure. 

But I have a simple question on time. You have laid out the obstacles, Mr. Kurtz, and Undersecretary Mr. Foresman, in a February 2006 press conference on cybersecurity or Cyberstorm, about 

the role of the department in the event of an attack, at the time, 

he said, ‘‘The key thing that you bring to the table is coordination. 

We will bring the ability to leverage multiple people towards a 

common goal, towards a common solution, in order to deal with the 

problem so that it is not a haphazard approach.’’

Well meaning, but the question is if you had to give an answer 

when the American people could feel comfortable that our 

cybersecurity is—the term under control is not accurate, but under 

extreme or very vibrant oversight, and our infrastructure is in lace 

and we have leveraged, when do you think that would be? 

Mr. PELGRIN. I guess my response, from a DHS perspective, 

when we have an early warning system in place, a solid early 

warning system program in place that embraces the private sector. 

Secondly, an emergency communications system that allows us to 

communicate when the very infrastructure we are seeking to protect is under attack. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Would you want that emergency system to be 

seamless, meaning that it would go across the nation, as opposed 

to saying all of New York would talk to each other? 
106

Mr. KURTZ. Among critical owners and operators across the nation. In other words, key government entities, key folks within the 

private sector. 

And then the third key area would be recovery and reconstitution 

issues. In other words, you have to accept that you have to plan 

as though there will be successful attacks. So what happens when 

that happens? How do you reconstitute the Internet? How do you 

reconstitute major protocols that may have been broken out there? 

We need to think through those. 

Once we have those questions solved, we can accept that there 

are always going to be attacks. The nature of the beast is we are 

always going to have bad guys out there and always going to have 

people coming after us. But if we have a system in place to protect 

and respond, then we will be in a much better spot. 

And, hopefully, along the way, we will have more resilient networks being developed through R&D. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Well, we think of Hurricane Katrina when we 

think of recovery. But for those of us who went to New York during 

9/11 and went specifically to Wall Street, which was not hit, per 

se, but, obviously, was shut down, if, for example, an attack was 

on that system, the question is what is the timing of recovery. 

What preparedness do we have? Because that system is obviously 

interwoven into the cybersecurity, if you will, superhighway, using 

an old term. And what is the recovery? I don’t know if any of us 

know that. 

Some of these things, I am sort of doubtful of discussing them 

publicly, but I think we have some real issues here and I guess I 

didn’t hear a timeframe, but the fact that you have given me three 

elements would suggest that these three elements are not yet 

there. 

Mr. KURTZ. No, they are not yet there. But in the case of the 

banking and finance industry, it is probably worthwhile for you to 

have a discussion with them, because they are very advanced in 

that area and they learned a lot from 9/11 and they have got some 

very sophisticated programs in place, which are worth learning 

about. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. And the only question, I would say, is they are 

probably sophisticated, but are they complete and what more can 

they do and what more can we do to help them. I think that is the 

real question. 

Mr. Pelgrin, the whole issue is to be able to communicate with 

state and local officials. Are we there yet, particularly on this aspect of security? 

Mr. PELGRIN. I don’t think we are there yet and it has to do a 

lot with still awareness and education and dollars and resources at 

the state and local government level. 

I think we have made huge progress from when we started in 

2003. The multi-state ISAC, we meet every month with all the 

states. We share information on an interactive call every month. 

But trying to get that message out to local governments is a true 

challenge. We are working diligently on doing that and actually we 

have a pilot with five states, New York being one of those states, 

in which we are expanding the multi-state into local governments 
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by allowing each state to have a state ISAC, which allows them to 

communicate. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. What states are they? What are the five 

states? 

Mr. PELGRIN. It is Florida, New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, and 

I am blocking on the fifth and I will have to get back to you on 

the fifth. Congresswoman, I will get back to you on the fifth one. 

Michigan. If I didn’t say Michigan, it is Michigan. 

It is an opportunity to reach them. But you need to put it in context from a local government perspective. When a local government 

official is a town supervisor who is part-time and they are working 

out of their home part-time and that computer that they are using 

is also, by the way, used by their kids at night, think about the 

challenges and what type information is contained on it. 

We had one town clerk who said when we talked about the importance of erasing media in an appropriate way, from destruction 

of the media to wiping it clean to ensure that data is protected, the 

comment initially was, ‘‘I don’t understand why we are talking 

about this, because we want to produce one of our supplements on 

how to do that.’’

And she said, ‘‘When my computer dies, I just toss it out.’’ Well, 

that information doesn’t get deleted just because that computer 

died on her. So it is critical that we reach all of these individuals, 

education and awareness at the earliest of ages. 

And one of the things I would recommend, Undersecretary 

Foresman mentioned it, but October is cybersecurity awareness 

month, it would be wonderful if Congress embraced that. We actually have our toolkit that we are providing you. 

We have five packages of toolkits for you. That deals with everything from calendars for kids to adults, mouse pads, anything we 

can do to bring this message home that they have to take basic 

precautions. 

I am not sure if it was Guy or David who said that the weakest 

link is just one link that you have to be concerned with. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is not just the 

town supervisor’s computer that is thrown way. I can tell you that 

large cities, having come out of local government, do likewise and 

I am not sure whether they are now more informed about cleaning 

those, the terminology ‘‘cleaning,’’ with quotes, but to eliminate the 

data on those thrown away computer and/or the donated computers 

that are subsequently donated to schools. 

I think there is certainly a large question of data preservation 

and/or particularly if we connect on some of these very secure matters. 

I yield back. Thank you very much. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I thank the 

witnesses for your valuable testimony today and members for their 

questions. 

Members of the committee may have some additional questions 

for the witnesses and we would ask you to respond to those in writing. The hearing record will be open for 10 days. 

Thank you once again for your participation. It was very, very 

helpful. 

Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. 
108

[Whereupon, at 5:44 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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