Cybersecurity Chief Quits And Blasts The NSA

Rod Beckström, director of the National Cyber Security Center, has quit, saying the National Security Agency is dominating cyber protection efforts.

It could all blow up into a major row as the director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), Rod Beckström, has suddenly resigned. Wired.com obtained a copy of his resignation letter in which he claimed:

"During the past year the NCSC received only five weeks of funding, due to various roadblocks engineered within the department and by the Office of Management and Budget."

The NCSC is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and it was just last year that Beckström was named to his post, an odd choice since his experience was in management, not security.

He also asserted that the DHS wasn’t in fact in charge of national cyber security, but that role was taken by the National Security Agency, an idea with which he disagreed.

When contacted by AFP, the DHS simply said:

“We thank Rod for his service, and regret his departure,” without giving a reason for his departure, and adding:

“The Department of Homeland Security has a strong relationship with the NSA, and continues to work in close collaboration with all of our federal partners on protecting federal civilian networks.”