“No Cyberwar”

The White House’s new cybersecurity czar Howard Schmidt has denied that the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing.”’There is no cyberwar,’ Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. ‘I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept,’ Schmidt said. ‘There are no winners in that environment.’ Instead, Schmidt said the government needs to focus its cybersecurity efforts to fight online crime and espionage. His stance contradicts Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence who made headlines last week when he testified to Congress that the country was already in the midst of a cyberwar — and was losing it. Schmidt’s official title is cyber-security coordinator at the White House, a job he took over just before Christmas. Schmidt has no budgetary authority, but he said that doesn’t make him powerless, because his office is in the White House. He’s been there before as an adviser to President George W. Bush, and he’s been the president and board member of countless security associations.”