Chertoff said on Monday that Gregory Garcia, who has been working at a Washington-area trade association, would become the department's first assistant secretary for cybersecurity, with responsibility for advising agencies and the private sector. The announcement ends a vacancy at Homeland Security that lasted more than 14 months and a wait that drew criticism from members of Congress, who it said demonstrated that Chertoff has not taken the topic seriously.
"Quite simply, our nation has been without adequate leadership on cybersecurity," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat, wrote in an opinion article that CNET News.com published in July. Republicans have also recently criticized Homeland Security's cybersecurity efforts, and a series of government reports has painted a picture of bureaucratic ineptitude. Chertoff acknowledged last year that he had "initial concerns" about raising the profile of cybersecurity in a bureaucratic culture that had focused on physical threats since Sept. 11, 2001. It took a formal vote last May in the U.S. House of Representatives to create the position--and an expected one in the Senate--to prompt Chertoff to acquiesce two months later. Garcia, who prior to accepting his new position was a vice president at the Information Technology Association of America, will succeed Donald "Andy" Purdy Jr., a two-year contract employee on loan from Carnegie Mellon University. Purdy, who has been criticized for taking the job of running a department that awarded at least $19 million in contracts to his university employer this year, was the acting cybersecurity chief.