We have officially made it through the first half of RSA 2011. So far, the event has not disappointed. And, we have some news that will shock many of our readers — there’s plenty going on beyond just cloud security. We are talking about the role of government and cybersecurity — another major topic being highlighted this week in San Francisco. And, we have pulled together all the key stories related to this topic for you.

DoD: Military Must be Capable Within ‘Cyber’ Domain
In his keynote Tuesday at RSA Conference 2011, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III said the Department Of Defense (DoD) is set to soon complete a new cyber security strategy that will explicitly recognize cyberspace as a new and official warfare domain. Dubbed Cyber 3.0, it charges the military with defending government networks just as it defends land, sea and air. Cyber 3.0 is also an extension of the U.S. Cyber Command Initiative that kicked off in 2009. To maintain national security today and in the future “our military must be as capable in this new domain as it is in more traditional domains,” Lynn said to a packed audience of security attendees. Read the full Network World article here.

Defense Dept. Proposes Armoring Civilian Networks
A top Defense Department official said today that the U.S. military should “extend” a technological shield used to protect its own networks to important private sector computers as well, which could sweep in portions of the Internet and raise civil liberty concerns. William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense, proposed at the RSA Conference extending “the high level of protection afforded by active defenses to private networks that operate infrastructure” that’s crucial to the military or the U.S. economy. What Lynn refers to as “active defenses” were pioneered by the National Security Agency. In an essay last year, Lynn likened them to a cross between a “sentry” and a “sharpshooter” that can also “hunt within” a network for malicious code or an intruder who managed to penetrate the network’s perimeter. Read the full CNET article here.

Cyber-Security Czar Defends Government Role
Howard Schmidt, the White House cybersecurity coordinator, defended a new federal program that would allow individual Internet users to authenticate their online identities during a panel discussion held on the eve of the RSA security technology conference in San Francisco. Mr. Schmidt argued that the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (or NSTIC) is meant to serve as a catalyst for the private sector to adopt however it sees fit, and will “balance privacy, anonymity and security.” Read the full WSJ post here.

Homeland Security Seeks Cybersecurity Funding
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked for funding to support its pact with the National Security Agency (NSA) to align efforts on cybersecurity as part of its fiscal 2012 budget request. Included in its $57 billion budget for 2012, the DHS has asked for $1.3 million to help the DHS and NSA collaborate on matters of cybersecurity “to protect against threats to critical civilian and military computer systems and networks.” The funds will support an effort unveiled last October to formalize how the agencies collaborate on cybersecurity. Prior to the pact, federal agencies working on cybersecurity had coordinated efforts in a nebulous way, a scenario that drew criticism from the Government Accountability Office, the federal watchdog agency. Read the full InformationWeek story here.

White House RSA Message Consistent Over the Years
RSA arguably is the most important IT security conference around, and one that the White House doesn’t take for granted. Attendees mostly come from the business and vendor community, a major constituency crucial for the success of the Obama administration cyberspace agenda. And this year, as in the past two, the Obama administration has sent its top guns to San Francisco, with the message that the federal government can’t accomplish any of its cybersecurity goals without the cooperation of the private sector. Listen to these emissaries; their speeches consistently include the mantra: the need for a public/private-partnership (sorry CSIS’s Jim Lewis, who tweeted this past week that that term be banned in 2011). Read the full GovInfoSecurity post here.

What do you all think about this bill? It certainly gives the administration some strong power over the Internet. And, since the Internet economy is such a vast thing, we are surprised that many other organizations and business groups aren’t making a fuss over this bill. The one shining light in this bill is that it will cause the Obama administration to speed up its cybersecurity plan – which certainly needs a kick in the pants these days.

Since we cover cyber security on an ongoing basis, and have received some very thoughtful comments from our readers, we would like to tap into this collective knowledge and come up with three recommendations to help strengthen our nation’s cyber security efforts. As such, we would like to hear from you! Please post in the comments section your top three recommendations for the new “cyber czar,” and we will pull these together into an official letter for this person.

We welcome any and all ideas. Surely, this person could benefit from the collective wisdom of our readers, and as many of us agree, there is only room for improvement when it comes to national cyber security.

While we are not surprised that the Joint Strike Fighter breach was not the only attempt at attacking the Pentagon’s networks, we are astounded by the sheer volume of attacks. We are also curious to hear how the 2009 numbers will shake out, which will surely be an increase in the 2008. Also, $100 million dollars is a significant investment for the Department of Defense, but surely they will need to pore even more resources into fighting this battle.

We are still anxiously await the results of the Obama administration recently completed a 60-day review of the government’s efforts to protect key public and private networks. And, fortunately, the Pentagon will be creating a new “cyber command” for defending the Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities.  So, our government is moving forward with addressing this issue.

Interesting times we live in right now. We will keep you posted on the results of the 60-day cyber review.