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White House looking for ‘cyber moonshot’

Trump administration tech advisers are looking for a cybersecurity "moonshot," CyberScoop's Shaun Waterman reported Thursday.
moonshot, space, flags
(Getty Images)

Trump administration tech advisers are looking for a cybersecurity “moonshot,” CyberScoop’s Shaun Waterman reported Thursday.

But such a plan may still be a ways off.

“This is the beginning of a conversation,” Scott Charney, vice chairman of the president’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee told CyberScoop during a break in the proceedings at a public meeting Wednesday.

“This current approach [to cybersecurity] isn’t working,” added Charney, a former Justice Department cyber prosecutor and current Microsoft VP. “Maybe incremental improvements are not enough … The breaches keep on happening.”

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One official said the “moonshot” paradigm had been suggested to the committee by the White House. A former official who once worked with the committee said that was how taskings typically emerged. Charney said only that “It’s something a lot of people have been talking about.”

On Thursday, former CIA CTO Ira “Gus” Hunt delivered a presentation about the need for a cyber moonshot to an event hosted by The Atlantic. America faced a “compelling opportunity to apply the lessons” of that five year scramble to get a man on the lunar surface and bring him back, Hunt said.

“It took a visionary challenge to put that all together,” he added. “Today, we need to ignite that same passion.”

Learn more about the cyber moonshot on CyberScoop.

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