Obama said to be close again to naming cybersecurity chief

By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld
November 16, 2009

The Obama administration is once again reported to be close to naming a White House cybersecurity coordinator.

A story in the Federal Times, quoting unnamed sources, said that an announcement could come as soon as Thanksgiving.

The two people in the running for the post are Frank Kramer, a former assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, and Howard Schmidt, a former White House cybersecurity adviser and corporate chief security officer (CSO), the report says. Both are names that have been mentioned as likely candidates for the position for several months.

This is not the first time that the White House has been rumored to be close to announcing its pick. In September, Reuters reported that an announcement was imminent. When that did not happen, some security analysts suggested that the White House could be waiting for October to make the announcement because the month had been designated as a "cybersecurity month."