Access Control
& Security Systems

The Department of Homeland Security has created the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) under the Department's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate. The NCSD will conduct cyberspace analysis, issuing alerts and warnings, improving information sharing, and aiding in national-level recovery efforts. The new division is a step in implementing the President's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace and the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

"Cyber security cuts across all aspects of critical infrastructure protection," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. "This new division," he says "will be focused on the vitally important task of protecting the nation's cyber assets so that we may best protect the nation's critical infrastructure assets."

With 60 employees, the Division is organized around three units designed to:

• Identify risks and help reduce the vulnerabilities to government's cyber assets and coordinate with the private sector to identify and help protect America's critical cyber assets;
• Oversee a consolidated Cyber Security Tracking, Analysis, & Response Center (CSTARC), which will detect and respond to Internet events;
• Track potential threats and vulnerabilities to cyberspace; and coordinate cyber security and incident response with federal, state, local, private sector and international partners; and
• Create, in coordination with other appropriate agencies, cyber security awareness and education programs and partnerships with consumers, businesses, governments, academia, and international communities.

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