An overabundance of cybersecurity leaders across federal agencies is hindering the government’s ability to adapt to the changing digital landscape, according to a top Homeland Security Department official.
Agencies must be able to act swiftly to keep their tech ecosystems secure against a constantly evolving array of digital threats, but excessive bureaucracy within the federal cyber community is impeding that quick action, according to Mark Bristow, director of the hunt and incident response team within Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center. Though it’s critical to have different groups weigh in on cybersecurity policies, he said, today there are too many cooks in the kitchen to execute a coherent, unified strategy.
“We have too many [chief information security officers] in the government,” Bristow said Tuesday at the Cyber Summit hosted by Nextgov and Defense One. “I understand why they’re there ... but it really gets in the way of setting strategic vision. You have all these people who have slightly conflicting guidance and opinions ... and what happens is you start to get organizational stagnation because you can’t make any decisions, and therefore you can’t make any progress.”
And according to Bristow, adversaries are already exploiting that stagnation.
“They know that this is how this works, they count on it with their tactics and techniques,” he said. “We need to flip our operational paradigm in a way that frustrates the adversary."
Bristow isn’t the first federal leader to raise concerns about excess bureaucracy in the cyber community—in January, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said congressional efforts to bolster the country’s security posture are hindered by the numerous committees that want to weigh in.
But bureaucracy isn’ ..
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