- The Washington Times - Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Democratic National Committee is hiring a person to harden its information systems against hackers in the aftermath of last year’s historic data breach.

“The DNC is seeking a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to join the management team of the DNC to lead technology initiatives and build the technology and data infrastructure to fight for progress and elect Democrats across the country,” according to an online job posting spotted first by Politico.

“This senior technical executive position will set the vision for the Democratic Party’s technology tools, data and analytics infrastructure, structure technical collaboration architecture, modernize the DNC’s technology infrastructure, products, services and developer programs and work with diverse stakeholders to create and support a national ecosystem for innovation and engagement within the Party,” the advertisement says.

More broadly the role involves overseeing “all technical aspects of the DNC,” according to the help-wanted ad, including “Securing the DNC’s information technology resources and data, and establishing modern practices for IT security monitoring and management.”

Security has been a serious concern within the DNC ever since the website WikiLeaks published thousands of internal emails during the run-up to last year’s U.S. presidential race and consequently complicated matters for the campaign of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton near the election cycle’s end.

The U.S. intelligence community has alleged state-sponsored hackers breached the DNC at the behest of the Russian government as early as July 2015 and went undetected within the party’s network until at least June 2016. Critics of that theory of suggested otherwise, however, and have questioned whether the DNC emails were actually supplied to WikiLeaks by a Democratic Party source.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez first advocated for hiring an in-house cybersecurity officer prior to being picked in February to helm the Democratic Party in place of acting chair Donna Brazile.

“I want to make sure this chief cybersecurity officer is working with all of our state partners, because I’m confident we can fortify the front door and prevent future breaches,” Mr. Perez told Politico in January. “At the same time, it’s critically important all the windows are closed as well.”

Ms. Brazile was named acting DNC chair in July 2016 when the party’s previous head, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned after the WikiLeaks disclosures revealed she had favored Mrs. Clinton over her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont Independent.

Subsequent WikiLeaks disclosures later revealed Ms. Brazile had shared debate questions with Mrs. Clinton during last year’s race, causing CNN to terminate her role as an on-air commentator.

• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.

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