Federal CISOs: Now give me money

Federal chief information security officers want more money, are skeptical of cloud computing and increasingly see their responsibilities turning to managerial, policy and political duties.

That's all according to an unscientific survey of 36 CISOs who participated in a second annual survey sponsored by cybersecurity certification organization (ISC)2, Cisco, and this year, consulting firm Garcia Strategies.

In their responses, 57 percent of surveyed federal CISOs said they are not confident that Congress understands their mission well enough to provide enough money, whether for hiring staff or for technology. Were they able to set the priorities of the White House cybersecurity coordinator, 21 percent said they would work toward improving agency funding for, and implementation of, cybersecurity mandates.

As for cloud computing, 72 percent said they do not utilize it "because of the high levels of uncertainty around being able to replicate IT security policy in the cloud (45 percent) and data loss prevention (21 percent)."

The Homeland Security Department's Einstein program is at least doing better in the eyes of CISOs, according to this survey. Previously, the program was thought frustrating and too externally focused, but not almost three fourths of respondents say they are "satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with the effort.

When it comes to job duties, about half said their duties becoming more managerial and almost 55 percent said it is becoming more political and policy-oriented. About a quarter said it is becoming more technical.

Another finding of the survey is that 62 percent said they rely on the information systems security line of business to augment cybersecurity expertise.

For more:
- read the "2010 State of Cybersecurity from the Federal CISO's Perspective" report (reg req)
- see a video presentation of the report (req req)

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