By This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it HSO Editor
After a prolonged search -- vowing to make the choice personally -- President Obama has named Howard A. Schmidt, a former cybersecurity adviser to President George W. Bush as the nation's cyberczar.
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Schmidt, who has more than 30 years in government service, also served as Chief Information Security Officer at eBay, Chief Security Officer at Microsoft, and most recently was President and CEO of the Information Security Forum which describes itself as is "an international, independent, non-profit organization dedicated to benchmarking and identifying good practice in information security."
In the Bush administration, Schmidt was the lead cybersecurity adviser to counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, and in 2003 he was instrumental in producing the National Security to Secure Cyberspace, a comprehensive assessment of terrorist and organized crime threats to US cyberinfrastructure. It was released in February, 2003.
The Obama administration has been chided for dragging its feet amidst the current climate of growing cyberattacks both in government and the private sector. Last week, Pentagon officials confirmed reports that Iraqi insurgents were able to hack into live video feeds from US Predator drones flying over Iraq and Afghanistan. The Wall Street Journal reported that that "Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds." Last month, a federal court in Atlanta indicted eight alleged Russian and European hackers who, the complaint says, stole $9 million by hacking into a US unit of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The group allegedly were able to steal the funds from about 280 ATMs worldwide.
According to his resume, Schmidt was appointed by President Bush as the Vice Chair of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, and as the Special Adviser for Cyberspace Security for the White House in December 2001. He assumed the role as the Chair in January 2003 until his retirement in May 2003.
Prior to the White House, Schmidt was chief security officer for Microsoft Corp., where his duties included CISO, CSO and forming and directing the Trustworthy Computing Security Strategies Group.
Before Microsoft, Schmidt was a supervisory special agent and director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) Computer Forensic Lab and Computer Crime and Information Warfare Division. While there, he established the first dedicated computer forensic lab in the government.
Before AFOSI, he was with the FBI at the National Drug Intelligence Center, where he headed the Computer Exploitation Team. Before working at the FBI, Schmidt was a city police officer from 1983 to 1994 for the Chandler Police Department in Arizona.
Schmidt served with the US Air Force in various roles from 1967 to 1983, both in active duty and in the civil service. He had served in the Arizona Air National Guard from 1989 until 1998 when he transferred to the US Army Reserves as a Special Agent, Criminal Investigation Division where he continues to serve.
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