Cybersecurity Challenge

This week Secretary Napolitano announced a new initiative to bring about increased public participation in the Department’s concerns about cyber security. Realizing that public involvement is absolutely necessary in protecting the Internet from botnets, phishing attacks and identity theft she announced the DHS National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge. According to the Challenge web page the purpose of the challenge is “to solicit ideas from industry and individuals alike on how best we can clearly and comprehensively discuss cybersecurity with the American public”. The Department is looking for detailed proposals to help them better communicate cybersecurity issues to the general public. Submissions are due to the Department by April 30th. Actually, though I really do believe that the challenge is really directed at producing an awareness campaign directed at the general public for Internet security, the wording of the information on the Challenge web page is vague enough to cover almost any portion of the cybersecurity spectrum. With that in mind, I have a slightly subversive idea. What if some one in the chemical security community could come up with a program to communicate the extent of the cybersecurity threat that owners and operators of industrial control systems faced? If it met the other requirements outlined on the Cybersecurity Challenge web page I think that it would have a good chance of being considered for evaluation in the competition.