Creatively Securing IT: Melissa Hathaway, White House Cybersecurity Policy Review Leader

Government and business must think creatively to help safeguard America's digital assets, says Melissa Hathaway, the former White House acting senior director for cybersecurity who led President Obama's 60-day cybersecurity policy review. Hathaway, an interview with GovInfoSecurity.com, cited the innovative coupling of cell phone and global positioning technologies to authenticate a user withdrawing money from an ATM or making a credit card purchase. With the cell phone turned on, a GPS can verify that the consumer is where the transaction takes place. "That's not what cell phones were originally designed for, but I thought it was a creative solution on how to defeat the fraud or at least make it much more complicated for the criminal or thieves to take our information or take our personal data," Hathaway said in a conversation with Eric Chabrow, GovInfoSecurity.com managing editor. In the first of the two-part interview, Hathaway also discussed: The critical posture of cybersecurity in the United States. "The threat is outpacing our defenses at a volume and velocity never imagined." Getting government and the private sector to collaborate on cybersecurity. "The private sector really needs to step up and help own the problem." Resisting the urge to over regulate industry, and instead using the government's massive purchasing power to require security-ready IT wares. "Using procurement as a market lever is a better than regulations." (Click here to listen to part 2 of the interview.) President Obama in February assigned Hathaway to lead a wide-ranging, interagency review the government's cybersecurity plans and activities. Her review resulted in the administration's cybersecurity policy agenda the president unveiled in May. Hathaway is a protégé of retired Adm. Mike McConnell, who served until earlier this year as the National Intelligence director. Under McConnell, Hathaway served as a senior advisor and cyber coordination executive. She chaired the National Cyber Study Group, contributing to the development of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. That led to her appointment as director of the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force in January 2008. At the business consultancy Booz Allen, where she first worked with McConnell, Hathaway served as a cybersecurity strategist, leading the information operations and long-range strategy and policy support business units. She resigned her White House job in August, and shortly thereafter started the consultancy, Hathaway Global Strategies, and this fall joined the Belfer Center for Science and International Affair at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as a senior adviser. Hathaway holds a BA from American University and a special certificate in information operations at the U.S. Armed Force Staff College.