BSidesSF preview: Amit Yoran sees improvement in national infosec effort

He was the Department of Homeland Security's first director of the National Cyber Security Division of the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection office, but his tenure was brief. After a year on the job, Amit Yoran left DHS in September 2004.

But in a phone conversation this morning, he expressed a lot more hope in where things are now headed. [The interview is part of a series of RSA and BSidesSF previews you'll see this week. Yoran will participate in a panel discussion Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 11 a.m. with Andrew Hay; Richard Bejtlich and Travis Reese. The topic is "Attacking Cyber Security Marketecture."]

Yoran expressed hope in the government's trusted ID program, launched by the U.S. Department of Commerce to promote online trusted identity technologies. He also credited presidential cybersecurity advisor Howard Schmidt with amassing a team of high-caliber infosec professionals.

"The Administration has pulled in some extremely smart people in that office below Howard, and obviously the right people raises the probability of success," said Yoran, CEO of NetWitness since November 2006.

Does he credit the change in administrations since his departure? Not exactly.

"A lot has changed in the world since I was there and that has increased the cybersecurity focus within the government," he said. "One example is the development of Stuxnet. WikiLeaks was another big development that pushed security to the front burner."

If one stops to think about it, he said, most of the big watershed developments have come in the last year alone, including Stuxnet and WikiLeaks.

Yoran said he will probably bring these things up during the panel discussion, since a major focus is in how best to deal with advanced threats.

-Bill Brenner