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b'Einstein is an intrusion detection - and soon an intrusion prevention - system the government is deploying to safeguard government IT systems. Some cybersecurity experts contend Einstein has the potential to intrude on the privacy of individual Americans, a concern Philip Reitinger dismisses.\\n\\n

Reitinger, deputy undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security\'s National Protection and Programs Directorate and director of the National Cybersecurity Center, says the only purpose of Einstein is to protect government networks.\\n\\n

"To that end, it is not our intention to go out and seek things like personally identifiable information," Reitinger said in the second of a two-part interview with GovInfoSecurity.com. "Our intent is instead, say, what constitutes an attack? What is malicious traffic? And when we see something that is malicious traffic, that is an attempt to compromise a government system, and quite conceivably impair the privacy of Americans who data is held or the people who are working on those government systems, that we can detect that and stop it, and do a better job of actually protecting privacy."\\n\\n

Besides Einstein, other subjects Reitinger addressed in the interview conducted by GovInfoSecurity.com\'s Eric Chabrow included:\\n\\n

In Part 1 of the interview, Reitinger discussed the need to develop innovative, collaborative approaches to meet the human resources needs to safeguard government systems and how much risk the government faces by not having a sufficient number of cybersecurity professionals.\\n\\n

Before his appointment in March, Reitinger served as chief trustworthy infrastructure strategist at Microsoft, where he was responsible for helping improve the protection and security of the nation\'s critical IT infrastructure. This role allowed him to coordinate closely with government agencies and private partners on cybersecurity protection programs to build trustworthy computing systems worldwide. \\n\\n

Reitinger also served as a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Advisory Council, where he advised the FEMA administrator on aspects of cybersecurity related to emergency management. FEMA is part of DHS. He is an expert on computer crime and policy, and previously served as the executive director of the Defense Department\'s Cybercrime Center, charged with providing electronic forensic services and supporting cyber investigative functions department-wide. Before joining DoD, Reitinger served as deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property division at the Justice Department. \\n\\n

Reitinger holds a law degree from Yale Law School and a bachelor\'s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Vanderbilt University.'