Insider Threat Task Force To Supplement Federal Cyber Security
October 7, 2011 by Sam Rolley
President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Friday to strengthen the government’s cyber security protections to avoid classified document leaks by Federal insiders.
The order creates agencies that will train government employees to safeguard sensitive documents stored on computers and also to identify threats to classified information.
An Insider Threat Task Force, co-chaired by the attorney general and the director of National Intelligence and comprised of “the heads of, the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, and Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Information Security Oversight Office, as well as such additional agencies as the co-chairs of the Task Force may designate.”
The task force is to be a government-wide operation designed to identify threats to security within Federal agencies before documents can be leaked.
According to The Hill, the actions are in response to the leak of thousands of classified State Department cables by WikiLeaks last year. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, allegedly leaked the documents to the website after downloading them to a flash drive.
The White House said that the move to create a new task force to monitor cyber security will also encourage interagency information sharing that will improve domestic security.
You can opt-out at any time. We protect your information like a mother hen. We will not sell or rent your email address to anyone for any reason.
