Many Top Cybersecurity Posts Remain Empty — And Not On Purpose – By Joseph Marks (defenseone.com) / Nov 10 2017
Filling various CIO and CISO jobs is taking a temporary backseat to more senior appointments, the White House cybersecurity coordinator says.
Many top cybersecurity and technology positions remain vacant 10 months into the Trump administration, but that’s not by design, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Rob Joyce said Thursday.
Those vacant positions—or positions filled on an acting basis—include the federal chief information officer, the federal chief information security officer, the head of the Homeland Security Department’s cybersecurity and infrastructure protection division, and numerous agency CIOs and CISOs.
There’s no guarantee that all of those positions will be filled, but they’re definitely not among the positions President Donald Trump says he’s purposely not filling in order to reduce government bureaucracy, Joyce said during a summit hosted by Defense One, Nextgov’s sister publication.
“It’s not an intentional emptiness today and not an intentional decision to keep those empty going forward,” Joyce said. “It’s more stacking up the nominations and clearing the decks of the senior-most leaders and ambassadors we’ve got to get through.”
Once those top officials are confirmed, Joyce said, he expects a “cascade” of tech and cyber officials to reach the Senate for confirmation.
The vacancies in top tech and cyber ranks have made it more challenging to make decisive changes, he said.
“Often the new people will come in and will challenge the status quo and allow us to shake things up a bit,” he said.
PB/TK – As the US has empty cyber desksm the World of hackers keep finding news ways thru the ‘001011000111’ life.
