Compliance Management, Government Regulations

Ari Schwartz leaves cybersecurity post at White House

Ari Schwartz, senior director for cybersecurity, National Security Council, at the White House, stepped down this week, two years after becoming a trusted cyber adviser to the Obama administration.

Schwartz, who started his White House run in 2013 as director for cybersecurity privacy, civil liberties and policy, had said early on that he planned to stay only two years, according to a report in the Federal Times, which first reported on Schwartz's resignation.

The former senior internet policy adviser at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been a vocal advocate of information sharing, telling an audience at SC Congress New York last year that would like to see sharing get to the point that when information on a threat comes in, it's shared “within an hour.”

At the time he had harsh words for the U.S. Congress dragging its feet on creating laws to promote it. “We've tried to remove the barriers” to legislation that makes meaningful information sharing a reality, Schwartz said.

The Federal Times reported that the White House has keyed in on a successor to Schwartz, but will not reveal a name until the candidate has completed the vetting and hiring process.

Schwartz has long been a policy guru in D.C. serving in the Commerce Department and also putting in a decade at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

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