March 20, 2017–Jeanette Manfra, acting deputy under secretary-cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, said today at an event organized by the New America Foundation that she plans to develop a “data driven” approach to assess how federal agencies are improving their cybersecurity, and thinks she can implement such a system in two years. While Ms. Manfra declined to comment in detail on the particulars of the executive order on cybersecurity that the Trump administration is developing, she did confirm that one of its main thrusts will be to put more resources into improving federal agency security.

Development of better ways to measure the effectiveness of agency security improvements will be key to that effort, she said, and will allow DHS to then better “enforce” security rules. “I would like to have that [measurement] strategy done in the next couple of months, and a plan to implement it in the next two years,” Ms. Manfra said.  “I think we can do it.” – John Curran, john.curran@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily