Homeland Security Seeks 1000 Cybersecurity Pros

The Department of Homeland Security  has been given the go-ahead to hire up to 1,000 new cybersecurity pros over the next three years, secretary Janet Napolitano said today.

The new hiring authority will let DHS, a key agency in the nation’s cybersecurity strategy, fill positions in risk and strategic analysis, incident response, vulnerability detection, intelligence, investigation, and network and systems engineering.

The agency says it doesn’t currently foresee having to fill all 1,000 positions, but Homeland Security for the National Protection and Programs Directorate and director of the National Cyber Security Center Phil Reitinger told InformationWeek last month that hiring qualified cybersecurity pros was his top priority.

“I have some awesome people here at DHS, we have a great team, but we just don’t have enough of them yet, and we’re in strict competition with the private sector to get the best and brightest to work on these issues,” Reitinger said. “I’m a firm believer that organizations succeed or fail based on the people you have.

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DoD, Homeland Security Negotiate Pact to Help Keep Country Safe

An agreement between the departments of Defense and Homeland Security that calls for sharing some intelligence data with emergency operations centers nationwide is part of post-9/11 efforts to harden America against another terrorist attack, senior department officials said recently.

The more than 60 emergency operations centers — also known as “fusion centers” — are managed by state and local agencies. The centers collect information that can be used to combat terrorist threats or for responding to natural or man-made disasters.

Both the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and the 9/11 Commission report published in 2004 state “that we were not doing sufficient information sharing between federal agencies and state and local agencies,” Michael McDaniel, deputy assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense strategy and force planning, said during a recent interview with The Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service reporters.

DHS became involved in helping state and local officials establish fusion centers in their jurisdictions, McDaniel said. “That was great as a first step. But, one of the questions still was: ‘How do you share this information?’” he said.

“The whole concept of a fusion center – what’s inherent in the word ‘fusion’ – is a collaboration of information across multiple agencies at multiple levels,” McDaniel said, “so that that information comes to a common center-of-gravity, if you will, and at that point is shared,” as needed, with analysts from different agencies, including those working at the state and local level.

Much of the nation’s intelligence-gathering capability is contained within the Defense Department, McDaniel said. The Defense Department and DHS, he said, have been collaborating over the past few years to provide intelligence information to state- and local-agency analysts.

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Homeland Security and Defense Domestic Operations?

The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security recently notified law enforcement agencies and associations, such as the National Association of Chiefs of Police, about the Obama Administration’s interest in using the military during “emergencies.”

Government officials reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate met with the Commander of the US Northern Command, General Gene Renuart, to discuss “pre-disaster planning, response and recovery in support of the federal response to the 2009 hurricane season as well as wild fires, floods and other potential disasters.”

The meeting reinforced the important relationship between the two organizations and focused on the operational role of US Northern Command and what resources and skills they bring to any major Federal effort related to all-hazards preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. It was also an opportunity to meet operational leaders who would fill key positions in those support efforts.

“NORTHCOM plays a vital role in disaster response in support of state and local officials,” Fugate said. “I am impressed by their commitment to teamwork and interoperability. They are leaning forward and are solutions-oriented partners among the nation’s emergency response team.”

“We are committed to teaming with and supporting our civilian partners,” added Renuart. “If our federal partners, state and local officials are successful in responding to contingency operations, then ultimately we a

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