Cybersecurity

What to expect from the NSA’s new cyber directorate

With less than two weeks until the National Security Agency new cybersecurity directorate officially starts its work, the organization’s leader said she plans to take a “come together” approach in its first 60 days in order to make the group as effective as possible.

The directorate’s leader, Anne Neuberger, said Sept. 18 at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s summit that her team will be made up of people with a variety of backgrounds, drawing from threat intelligence professionals, emerging technologies experts and nuclear command and control staff, totaling “several thousand” people.

Because of the size and diversity of backgrounds, the first step, she said, is to create “one community, one culture internally.” Diversity, she said, will be her group’s strength.

“We’re integrating that to operationalize intelligence to defend against threats,” Neuberger said, who noted that she’ll be working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and FBI.

Neuberger, who previously led the Russia small group at the NSA, said her latest group will be “transforming to work in the unclassified space.”