The Department of Homeland Security is in the home stretch of deploying a new threat detection cybersecurity tool — Einstein, version two — across federal networks, and the agency is already hard at work designing an even more advanced version, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said last week.
In a speech at George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Napolitano said the deployment of the second version of Einstein would be completed this year, while the department begins development work on an even newer version.
She said Einstein 3 “will provide DHS with the ability to automatically detect and disrupt malicious cyber activity.†Already, DHS technicians have begun experimenting with technologies used by the Defense Department to protect its network that could be used for Einstein 3, she said, according to a report on Federal News Radio.
Einstein’s development process highlights the cybersecurity framework signed by DHS and DoD last year — a “historic agreement,†Napolitano said, to share information and resources related to cybersecurity.
The secretary rattled off a list of other cyber achievements from the past year, including a new 24/7 warning center and a 500 percent increase in the agency’s “stable of cyber experts.â€
