No one can question the importance of cyber to our national economy, and it is also directly related to critical infrastructure since SCADA devices allow for external control (and hacking) of facilities such as power plants, water treatment facilities, and even the electrical grid itself (for more on that see Securing SCADA Infrastructure).

So let’s peel back the cyber security onion some more. Who exactly is in charge of cybersecurity in this country? There are a number of key players you should be aware of such as DHS (with the National Cybersecurity Center), the FBI (with the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force), the FCC (with the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council), the Secret Service (with their Electronic Crimes Task Forces), and of course the NSA (with their Information Assurance Directorate as well as USCYBERCOM itself created to “strengthening our nation's ability to withstand and respond to cyber attack”) so all of these agencies play major role (just to name a few).

A U.S. GAO study stated that “Cybersecurity strategy documents have assigned high-level roles and responsibilities but have left important details unclear…the roles and responsibilities of key agencies charged with protecting the nation’s cyber assets are inadequately defined.”

So my follow up question is who is in charge of cyber-security in this country? I provided some sources you may find useful below.

I'd also be interested to know if you think any recent programs cleared anything up with regard to who is in charge of cybersecurity such as the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative or cybersecurity in the National Security Strategy, or the just created Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center?

Thanks, Dr G.

The White House. The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. Retrieved from https://fas.org/irp/eprint/cnci.pdf

Segal, A. (2015, February 6). Cybersecurity in the 2015 National Security Strategy. The Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2015/02/06/cybersecurity-in-the-2015-national-security-strategy/

Paletta, D. and Yadron, D. (2015, February 10). White House to Create New Division to Streamline Cyberthreat Intelligence. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-to-create-new-division-to-streamline-cyberthreat-intelligence-1423572846

Brooks, C. (2013, October 1). DHS has become the epicenter for government cybersecurity. Government Security News. Retrieved from http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/32882/dhs_has_become_epicenter_government_cybersecurity