Mischel Kwon, director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, resigned from her post last week, the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed. Kwon will stay on with US-CERT until next month when she will take a job with EMC's RSA security division as vice president of public sector security solutions, according to a report from Government Information Security.
Kwon is leaving, at least in part, because of frustration with bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of authority to do her job, The Washington Post quoted Kwon's colleagues as saying. Kwon, who was hired in June 2008, is the fourth U.S. CERT director in five years.
Last week Melissa Hathaway, White House acting senior director for cyberspace, resigned because she felt she was not empowered to drive change, she told The Washington Post. In March Rod Beckstrom, director of the National Cybersecurity Center, which is also part of the Department of Homeland Security, resigned reportedly because of a lack of agency support and conflicts with the National Security Agency.
President Obama has promised to name a federal cybersecurity coordinator or "czar" to oversee the government's cybersecurity efforts, but that post remains unfilled at the moment.