Trump taps Giuliani to head cyber-security team

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was recently tapped the head President-Elect Trump’s cyber-security team. Trump had originally said Giuliani would not play a role in his administration.

The cyber-security team will be important for a number of reasons, primarily following evidence that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee ahead of the election. As of Wednesday, Trump said agreed that “it was probably Russia” that hacked the DNC, according to The New York Times. Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson also said yesterday that it was “clearly troubling” Russia was behind the attack.

According to BBC, Trump tapped Giuliani because he has a background in working in the private cyber-security sector. He’s served as the chair of cybersecurity, privacy and crisis management with a law firm named Greenberg Traurig, for example.

Can the attacks really be stopped?

It’s not immediately clear what Giuliani’s role as cyber-security chief will be, aside from probably building a team to try to prevent additional attacks from Russia, China and other foreign governments. The problem is, at least if there’s anything I’ve learned about security, it’s probably not possible to stop them entirely, rather to prevent the frequency at which cyber attacks happen.

My guess is the new cyber-security team will work closely with intelligence agencies such as the NSA, DoD and FBI, though Trump has yet to form the new group. According to BBC, he plans to do so during his first quarter in office.