Day 476: Report: Trump considering eliminating top cybersecurity job

Cybersecurity becomes more important every day. While convenience of local or cloud-based storage has led to the reduction in paper and hard-copy files, that advantage has drawbacks, too. The information can be retrieved by foreign agents and third-parties from thousands of miles away.

With massive data hacks being revealed seemingly every day, the necessity for security measures is key, for both private citizens and governments.

Protecting secrets and transmissions is always a top priority for governments. The 2016 election and attempt by Russians to influence American voters, in part, by using stolen and/or proprietary information, underscores that idea.

That’s what makes the latest news out of the White House so strange. As the U.S. faces numerous cyber threats, with a variety of bad actors seeking to infiltrate databases, Donald Trump and his team are considering getting rid of the top cybersecurity position in the White House, according to a Politico report.

John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish new national security adviser, is leading the push to abolish the role of special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, currently held by the departing Rob Joyce, according to one current and two former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of deliberations about internal White House operations.

Cybersecurity experts and former National Security Council officials expressed alarm at the idea of eliminating the job, saying it would undo much of the progress the U.S. has made on cyber efforts and send the wrong message about U.S. priorities in the digital domain. The coordinator — a post created at the beginning of the Obama administration — leads a team of NSC staffers who manage federal cyber strategy on everything from election security to encryption policies to digital warfare.

Bolton’s deputy, Mira Ricardel, supports the idea of eliminating the coordinator role, according to two of the sources. “She’s thinking about whether to simply pick up the [cyber] function on her own,” said one of the former U.S. officials, who added that the odds were “60–40” that the White House would eliminate the job.

The danger is amplified by the U.S. fighting off cyber attacks from all corners of the globe.

The White House deliberations on the fate of the coordinator role come as the Trump administration faces numerous challenges in the cyber arena, from Russian intrusions into election systems and power grid equipment, to cyber thefts by China and North Korea, to Iranian hackers who may be newly emboldened by Trump’s abrogation of the international nuclear deal. Experts say the absence of this critical position could leave the government without a cohesive strategy for confronting these issues.

Overall, even considering removing such a vital position reeks of recklessness while seemingly offering zero advantages. In 2018, the need for more experts in the cyber realm is readily apparent and the top White House job on the issue is not one that can be neatly folded into someone else’s duties.

476 days in, 986 to go

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