Companies are reluctant to call federal law enforcement about security breaches for fear of losing control over a private situation, and state and local government executives worry about loss of control over their agency or being perceived by their citizens as incapable of handling the security matter. Several excellent infrastructure-assurance centers have been established in the private sector, and the market will sort out the best from the rest. Some say that the greatest threat to computer systems and data comes from within organizations. Government executives should not succumb to technology hype assuring that a security solution can be found through a piece of hardware, a software program or a one-time security audit. The single most important factor in securing the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of government data and networks is to have a complete security policy.
Bureaucracy comes in second.
Governments must be prepared to be competitive in the marketplace for high-tech personnel, and they must devote adequate funds for maintaining a complete security program. Also, because effective security is dependent upon cooperation and interaction between system users and administrators, field offices or other agency personnel, human resources and security, without top-down support and the full cooperation of agency executives, the effectiveness of a security program can be seriously undercut by bureaucratic neglect, apathy or misunderstanding. The Clinton administration's position on encryption exports poses one of today's biggest threats to national security. It is used widely, without export restrictions, in the majority of countries. The administration's position threatens America's dominance of the encryption software market and will do nothing to keep encryption out of the hands of criminals and terrorists or control their use because, if faced with key escrow or key recovery systems, terrorists will quickly develop their own encryption black market, and our encryption companies will continue to leave the U.S. and establish foreign sites in order to take advantage of the global market.