Blog: Scientists View Cybersecurity as an Intimidating Conundrum

Scientists View Cybersecurity as an Intimidating Conundrum
NextGov.com (09/02/10) Aliya Sternstein

The U.S. President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recently called on cybersecurity experts to discuss specific areas in the networking and information technology sector that warrant federal government research and development (R&D) funding. Cybersecurity "is the most difficult challenge," says Carnegie Mellon University's Jeannette M. Wing, who previously served as assistant director of the computer and information science and engineering directorate at the U.S. National Science Foundation. "And it's not just a societal and political challenge. It's a technical challenge." PCAST has found that although many advances in networking used to come from the Defense Department, recently innovation is more prevalent in the private sector, and the federal government does not play a huge part in R&D financing. Wing says the federal government needs to build research programs at agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Energy Department, which traditionally have not been considered test sites for computing, but now are conducting revolutionary work in the field.

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