Homeland Security to tap director

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will announce its first cybersecurity director on Friday, according to a senior industry lobbyist familiar with the discussions. The position will not report directly to Secretary Tom Ridge and will be filled by someone from outside the government, the lobbyist said.

Once established, the position will coordinate the federal government's computer security efforts, which have been left without anyone in charge after White House aides Howard Schmidt--now at eBay--resigned in April and Richard Clarke left in February. The law creating the department refocused the government's work on security, bringing together five agencies--the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, the Defense Department's National Communications System, the Commerce Department's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office, an Energy Department analysis center and the Federal Computer Incident Response Center--that previously had divvied up responsibility for critical infrastructure protection.