Senate confirms Navy, NSA veteran Coker as national cyber director

The Senate confirmed the government’s second-ever national cyber director on Tuesday, filling a far-reaching leadership position that will shape how agencies move forward collectively on pressing artificial intelligence and cybersecurity policies.

Lawmakers voted 59-40 to confirm Harry Coker, Jr., a 20-year Navy veteran and previous third-in-command at the National Security Agency , to head the Office of the National Cyber Director.

Recently, Coker has been an operating partner at C5 Capital, a London-based firm that funds businesses in the cybersecurity, energy security and space industries, according to a biography by the Potomac Officers Club. He’s also served as an adviser at Primis Principiis, an outside director at JSI and is a senior fellow at the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University.

“Harry Coker is an accomplished leader and dedicated public servant who is well-qualified to lead this importance office,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said on the Senate floor Dec. 12

Coker’s confirmation fills a 10-month vacancy that was left after the inaugural national director, Chris Inglis, stepped down in February. Kemba Walden had taken over as acting director of the office but was ultimately not nominated for the position.

ONCD has a major role to play in overseeing progress of the Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy implementation plan, unveiled in July, and in shaping budget proposals in line with these initiatives. Coker will also have a seat on the White House’s AI Council.

At his nomination hearings this fall, Coker stressed not only the importance of partnering with industry to ward against increasingly complex cyber threats, but of looking inward at how the government is recruiting the next generation of IT talent to lead and sustain these efforts.

It’s a well-known statistic by now that just 7% of permanent full-time federal employees are under the age of 30. To help expand the workforce underpinning the Biden administration’s cyber strategies, Coker said the government should extend its recruiting efforts beyond traditional four-year colleges and urban areas to diversify the pool of candidates.

ONCD is just one of several federal bodies that have influence over the federal government’s IT and cybersecurity posture, especially as Congress and the White House have made it clear that every agency, tech-oriented or not, has a responsibility to modernize its digital defenses.

This year alone, a slew of major policies were published to set deadlines and expectations for progress in these areas, including pending guidance from the Office of Management and Budget on AI.

Meanwhile, the technology itself marches on, and cyber attacks increasingly endanger public infrastructure and small and mid-size businesses, as well as large entities and the federal government.

“The quality of the cybercriminals has come up to the level that I used to only see from state actors four or five years ago,” said Alex Stamos, chief trust officer of Sentinel One during a Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday.

As industry fights these threats on the front lines, Coker said partnerships with it is essential. He’s acknowledged that while his office may have a leading role to play, “solutions cannot be about any one entity – or even just the federal government.”

“I’ve been in situations where that partnership wasn’t a true partnership. Where it was more one way: ‘tell me what you got, tell me what you know, and I’ll see you later,” he said during a Nov. 2 hearing. “That cannot — that will not — be effective in cybersecurity.”

Cybersecurity may also find an intersection with AI tools that can process mounds of data quickly and produce actionable intelligence to decision makers, Coker testified.

Twenty agencies have identified more than 1,000 AI use cases, or specific challenges or opportunities that AI could solve, according to an a report published Dec. 12 by the Government Accountability Office.

Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

周二，参议院确认了政府历史上第二位国家网络安全总监的任命，这一影响深远的领导职位将决定各机构如何共同推进紧迫的人工智能和网络安全政策。

议员们以 59 比 40 的投票结果确认了拥有 20 年海军服役经验、曾任国家安全局第三号人物的哈里·科克尔 (Harry Coker, Jr.) 出任国家网络总监办公室主任。

据波托马克军官俱乐部提供的简介显示，科克近期担任总部位于伦敦的C5 Capital的运营合伙人，该公司主要为网络安全、能源安全和航天领域的企业提供资金。他还曾担任Primis Principiis的顾问、JSI的外部董事，以及奥本大学麦克拉里网络与关键基础设施安全研究所的高级研究员。

“哈里·科克是一位杰出的领导者和尽职尽责的公职人员，完全有资格领导这个重要的职位，”密歇根州民主党参议员加里·彼得斯12月12日在参议院发言时说。

科克尔的任命填补了首任国家主任克里斯·英格利斯于2月份卸任后留下的10个月空缺。肯巴·沃尔登曾担任该办公室的代理主任，但最终并未获得正式提名。

国家网络安全和通信办公室（ONCD）在监督拜登政府7月公布的《国家网络安全战略》实施计划的进展以及制定符合这些举措的预算提案方面发挥着重要作用。科克尔还将加入白宫人工智能委员会。

在今年秋季的提名听证会上，科克不仅强调了与业界合作抵御日益复杂的网络威胁的重要性，还强调了政府内部如何招募下一代 IT 人才来领导和维持这些工作的重要性。

众所周知，联邦政府全职正式员工中只有 7% 的人年龄在 30 岁以下。科克表示，为了帮助扩大拜登政府网络战略的劳动力队伍，政府应该将招聘范围扩大到传统的四年制大学和城市地区之外，以使候选人来源多样化。

ONCD 只是对联邦政府的 IT 和网络安全态势有影响力的几个联邦机构之一，尤其是在国会和白宫已经明确表示，每个机构，无论是否以技术为导向，都有责任实现其数字防御的现代化之后。

仅今年一年，就发布了一系列重大政策，为这些领域的进展设定了期限和预期，其中包括管理和预算办公室即将发布的关于人工智能的指导意见。

与此同时，技术本身也在不断发展，网络攻击日益危及公共基础设施、中小企业以及大型实体和联邦政府。

Sentinel One 首席信任官 Alex Stamos 在周二的国土安全委员会听证会上表示：“网络犯罪分子的水平已经达到了我四五年前只在国家行为体身上才能看到的水平。”

科克表示，在工业界奋战应对这些威胁的第一线之际，与工业界建立伙伴关系至关重要。他承认，虽然他的办公室可能发挥主导作用，但“解决方案不能仅仅依靠任何单一实体——甚至不能仅仅依靠联邦政府”。

“我曾遇到过一些合作并非真正意义上的合作。更像是单向的：‘告诉我你有什么，告诉我你知道什么，然后我们再见，’”他在11月2日的听证会上说道。“这种合作在网络安全领域行不通，也永远不会奏效。”

科克作证说，网络安全也可能与人工智能工具相交，人工智能工具可以快速处理海量数据，并为决策者提供可操作的情报。

根据美国政府问责局 12 月 12 日发布的一份报告，已有 20 个机构确定了 1000 多个人工智能应用案例，或者说人工智能可以解决的具体挑战或机遇。

莫莉·韦斯纳是《联邦时报》的专职记者，主要报道与政府劳动力相关的劳工、政策和合同方面的新闻。她曾先后在《今日美国》和麦克拉奇报业集团担任数字内容制作人，并在《纽约时报》担任过文字编辑。莫莉毕业于北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校，主修新闻学。