U.S. cyber-spy report leaves czar role open

WASHINGTON, US: The White House report on cyber-spying to be released on Friday is business-friendly and privacy-conscious but leaves the tech community waiting anxiously for a hint of how powerful a new "cyberczar" may be, a cybersecurity expert who has read the draft said.

The draft calls for a series of actions to be taken soon to secure Internet traffic, a critical part of the U.S. economy, said James Lewis, who is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

But a second source and Lewis said the draft does not say whether the lead agency in securing the Internet should be the National Security Agency (NSA), which does cyber-spying, or the Department of Homeland Security.

Nor does it spell out how senior the top cybersecurity person would be, they said, raising the question of whether the decision would be made at the last minute or be put off.

The tech industry has pushed for the position to be in the White House so as to assure access to the president.

"The text did not include level (for a cyberczar). I'm not sure if by tomorrow they'll have that. We're anxiously awaiting that," said a high tech expert who has read the draft but was not authorized to speak on the matter.

The draft calls for organizing federal government agencies to better share information, supporting research and development to secure the Internet and increasing public awareness of the gravity of the problem of data-network thefts of defense and corporate secrets, money and personal identities.

Privacy activists who had worried about the NSA taking the lead on securing the Web should take heart from the draft, Lewis told Reuters.

"Every third word in the report is 'privacy' -- 'privacy' and 'civil liberties,'" he said.

"It's very business-friendly," said Lewis, adding that the draft he saw discussed regulation only as a last resort.

Tiffany Jones, Symantec Corp's director of government relations for Americas, said her company had urged the Obama team to continue to engage the private sector, to work harder to win international cooperation and to hire a cyberczar who knows the issue well and who has clout.

"We're looking for someone who actually has the ability to develop and set cyberpolicy between agencies -- someone who will have the appropriate staffing and resources in order to do his job," she said. "If they are becoming the cyberczar on cybersecurity, they need to have some level of authority."

Robert Holleyman, president of the Business Software Alliance, said he was pleased the Obama team was taking the issue up early in the administration.

"One of the great contributions to this will be the administration talking about what needs to be done on a global scale," he said. "Cybersecurity is a bigger problem than it's ever been because we're more connected to our networks than we've ever been."

Holes in U.S. cybersecurity defenses have allowed major incidents of thefts of personal identity, money, intellectual property and corporate secrets such as business negotiating strategies.

There have also been recent reports of the theft of sensitive military information and penetration of the U.S. electrical grid by cyber-spies who left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system.

The cybersecurity review was led by Melissa Hathaway, who is considered a leading candidate to be the cyberczar.

President Barack Obama ordered a 60-day review of federal cybersecurity efforts in February. That review was completed last month. The White House is due to release the cybersecurity report on Friday morning.