Homeland Security Dept. Coming to Silicon Valley

Facebook and Apple will soon have new neighbors: The Department of Homeland Security.

The government agency will open a satellite office in Silicon Valley, the firm announced Tuesday during the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the department is in the final stages of opening a local office, which will "serve as another point of contact for our friends here" in California.

"We want to strengthen critical relationships in Silicon Valley and ensure that the government and the private sector benefit from each other's research and development," Johnson continued. "And we want to convince some of the talented workforce here in Silicon Valley to come to Washington."

"My message to you today is this: government does not have all the answers or all the talent," Johnson said. "Cybersecurity must be a partnership between government and the private sector. We need each other, and we must work together. There are things government can do for you, and there are things we need you to do for us."

Johnson pointed to the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), which received more than 97,000 cyber incident reports from private and government sectors last year, and issued almost 12,000 cyber alerts or warnings.

"My goal is to see the NCCIC move to an even higher and better level," Johnson said, so DHS is "in the hunt to hire a new NCCIC director. I am personally participating in efforts to find a recognized all-star in the cybersecurity field, and I believe we are going to hire such a person soon."

President Obama wants to make the NCCIC "the primary portal through which the private sector should pass cyber threat indicators," Johnson said. The administration also supports "legislation that will provide protection from civil and criminal liability to those who share cyber threat indicators with the NCCIC."

In February, Obama signed an executive order that's intended to facilitate information sharing about cyber threats between the federal government and private companies.

Recommended by Our Editors

Homeland Security Worried About Android Security; They Probably Should Read SecurityWatch

A more recent executive order, meanwhile, authorized authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, to impose sanctions on individuals or entities believed to be involved in "malicious cyber-enabled activities" that could pose "a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, economic health, or financial stability of the United States."

A joint study produced in 2013 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee tipped an estimated $70 billion to $140 billion spent annually to fight cyber crime.

"In the name of homeland security, we can build more walls, erect more screening devices, interrogate more people, and make everybody suspicious of each other," Johnson said. "But we should not do this at the cost of who we are as a nation of people who cherish privacy and freedom to travel, celebrate our diversity, and who are not afraid.

"In the final analysis, these are the things that constitute our greatest homeland security," he concluded.