Last week a closed event known as the “Intelligence and National Security Alliance” was hosted in Arlington, Va., with the intention of discussing President Obama’s Cyber Security National Action Plan. The Plan, presented by White House cyber expert Michael Daniel, includes a proposed $19 billion budget and several policy proposals, including one which would create a Federal Chief Information Security Officer.
Top federal contractor Thad Allen of Booz Allen Hamilton weighed in on the meeting saying, “My response was, good deal. We need resources. It’s nice the president is sending a very strong signal” but that exact funding on specific agencies is hard to pin down at the moment because no one outside of the Office of Budget and Management knows the precise distribution of resources. Allen admits that, “It doesn’t get you everywhere you want to be strategically, but it’s a significant first step” for the federal government.