A little over a month ago, the White House forced out Tom Bossert, its cybersecurity czar[1]. A week later, cybersecurity coordinator Rob Joyce said he would depart as well. And now, rather than replace either[2], the Trump administration will do without anyone at the helm of its cybersecurity policy. It couldn’t have picked a worse time.
The news that the newly appointed national security adviser John Bolton has decided to phase out the cybersecurity coordinator role was first reported by Politico[3]. In place of a single point person in charge of guiding and shaping US cyber policy, the task will now fall instead to two National Security Council senior directors. The NSC did not respond to a request for comment.
“At a minimum, this decision and the way that it’s being communicated send the wrong signal,” says J. Michael Daniel, who served as cybersecurity coordinator under President Barack Obama and currently heads up the Cyber Threat Alliance nonprofit. “Certainly I think that our adversaries could interpret that as a signal that this administration doesn’t take the issue as seriously, regardless of if that’s actually their intent.”
'If anything, our enemies are only going to do more, not less.'
J. Michael Daniel, Former Cybersecurity Coordinator
In fairness, there’s nothing sacred about the cybercoordinator role, specifically. It didn’t exist before the Obama administration, and other corners of the NSC get along fine with a similar leadership structure to what Bolton has imposed. But the nature of cyberthreats, and the broad responsibilities Bossert and Joyce took on, seem particularly in need of centralized command.
“I think it’s probably fair that there’s more policy work to be done right now on cyber than in certain other areas, because it is in a formative stage,”