A top Obama administration official says the government and the cyber security community need to focus on building trust so information about cyber threats can be shared between them for the greater good.
Alejandro Mayorkas, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, says he recognizes that a trust deficit exists between the government and those who deal with data security, but says that needs to change.
The best way to address the trust deficit is to build trust
Mayorkas said during his address Thursday at the final day of the annual Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas. “That’s probably not an overnight process. It’s probably an incremental process, but let’s take the steps we need to.”
But several people in the crowd of hackers and information security professionals expressed concern that any information about cyber threats shared with the government could be used against them.
The federal government also has come under fire in recent months for its own failures in cybersecurity.
Last month, Katherine Archuleta, director of the federal Office of Personnel Management, resigned in the wake of a government data breach that is believed to be the biggest in U.S. history.
