Obama and Romney Could Rewrite Cyber Org Charts

US computer security might not be a major issue on the campaign trail, but the next president’s cybersecurity leadership choices are sure to raise eyebrows in Washington after the election.

Both candidates were virtually mute on the topic during key stump speeches. At the Oct. 16 foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney toward the end uttered the word, “hack” in relationship to China’s economic strategy: “China's been cheating over the years . . . by stealing our intellectual property; our designs, our patents, our technology. There's even an Apple store in China that's a counterfeit Apple store, selling counterfeit goods. They hack into our computers.” President Barack Obama twice in October visited Virginia’s George Mason University -- a federally-certified cybersecurity National Center of Academic Excellence -- without discussing cyber employment in the hotly-contested state. Virginia’s 277,600 high-tech professionals represent 9.8 percent of the state’s private workforce, according to TechAmerica Foundation. “I think it’s probably one of the things he should have focused more on because he wants to win Virginia,” said Dave Aitel, a computer scientist at the Pentagon’s National Security Agency during the Clinton administration. “It’s astounding to me that both of these candidates who have a lot vested in the issue are passing it by and I don’t know why that is.”