RSA: DHS Chief Launches Cybersecurity Competition

Speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano announced the National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge Competition, a contest to solicit ideas from individuals and industry about how to best engage the American public in a discussion about cybersecurity.

"A secure cyber environment is as much about people and habits and culture as it is about machines," said Napolitano. "...We need to have an ongoing, two-way conversation between the public and private sectors [about how to improve cybersecurity]."

Proposals submitted to DHS before the April 30 deadline will be evaluated based on factors that include teamwork, effective metrics for distribution and engagement, use of Web 2.0 technology, compliance with spam laws, privacy, repeatability, feedback mechanism, list building, transparency, and message.

Winners will be invited to a DHS event in Washington D.C. in late May or early June and will have the opportunity to help plan the National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign with DHS and to prepare the campaign for its launch in October, during Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Further details are available at the DHS Web site.

Napolitano offered reassurance that DHS understands the challenges of cybersecurity and repeated President Obama's acknowledgment of the seriousness of the cyber threat faced by the nation.

At the same time, she came to ask for help. Success, she said, will depend on our ability to interface with the private sector.

"We're working with our private sector partners in the financial services arena and with other key industries about what needs to be done and what can be done," she said, adding that this can be expected to continue.

As DHS addresses the cybersecurity challenge, it needs more than ideas about public outreach strategy. It needs cybersecurity talent.

"In fact, we may be trying to recruit some of your talent right now," she said, scanning the audience of cybersecurity professionals. "We need it."

She described how the government has been deploying and improving its Einstein intrusion detection system to spot, identify, and (eventually) disable cyber threats to government agencies.

And she called on the private sector to "redouble efforts to increase the security, reliability, and quality of products you have that enter the global supply chain."

The goal, she said, is an IT ecosystem that offers security automation, speed and interoperability, and privacy.

"We need to do more and we need to do it faster," she said.