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| Science & Technology |
| What Former NSA Chief Keith Alexander Thinks of Trump's Cyber Stance |
| 2017-03-14 |
| [Defense One] Former National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander wants government to take a more active role defending private-sector networks from cyberattacks and he thinks President Donald Trump can help make that goal a reality. Alexander was one of several cybersecurity experts who met with Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani shortly after the inauguration to discuss early-stage plans for a major government push on cybersecurity. Alexander declined to provide details about the closed-door portions of that meeting, but told Nextgov he was impressed with the new president’s demeanor and his interest in the issue. "I was impressed with the way he took on advice and came back with questions," Alexander said. "I think, if the nation could have sat in and watched it, they would have said, ’that’s our president; that’s what we need done.’ I’m very upbeat based on that." He also hopes Trump will allow the Defense and Homeland Security departments to pivot from responding to private-sector breaches and cyberattacks after they happen to more actively preventing adversary nation-states and other cyberattackers from penetrating U.S. companies’ networks in the first place. "Here’s the question: Is defense of the country incident response or preventing an attack?" Alexander said. "In the [Obama] administration, it was incident response. That means after the attack. That means, the missile landed and blew up the city and now, we’re in there cleaning up. If that’s your city, you’d say, ’we’d like to stop that missile’ and that’s what we should be doing [in cyberspace] in my opinion." |
| Posted by:Besoeker |