NSA Chief Doesn't Want to Do Cyber Security Solo

The National Security Agency doesn't want sole responsibility for running U.S. cyber security, the agency's director said Tuesday.

Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco, NSA Director Lieutenant General Keith Alexander said that any effort to keep U.S. and government networks safe would be a group effort, rather than a centrally managed operation.

The question of who should manage the security of U.S. government networks has become a bit of a hot-button issue in recent weeks. In early March, former technology entrepreneur Rod Beckstrom quit his position as director of the organization chartered with coordinating federal cyber security, the National Cybersecurity Center, saying that the NSA had an oversized role and dominated national cyber security efforts.

In his March 5 resignation letter, Beckstrom said that the NSA's culture was too different from network operations and security culture, and that top-level government network security monitoring could represent a threat to the democratic process.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163577/nsa_chief_doesnt_want_to_do_cyber_security_solo.html