Many businesses by now have gotten the message that the cyber threat landscape merits investment in infrastructure. An even stronger indicator that cybersecurity has become a priority area of focus for organizations is the rise of the CISO role. Yet on Tuesday, the White House opted to do away with the cybersecurity coordinator post on the National Security Council. It’s a puzzling move for an administration that claims to want to tackle cyber threats head on.

The New York Times reports that a memo from an aide to John R Bolton, the new national security adviser, suggested that the role of a top cybersecurity official was no longer needed because “lower-level officials had already made cybersecurity issues a ‘core function’ of the president’s national security team.”

Interestingly, on the same day the United States eliminated the cyber chief post, Mexico’s central bank created a cybersecurity unit. That initiative follows on the heels of a major cyberheist on Mexican banks around the end of April, which netted cyberattackers upwards of about $20 million. According to Reuters, “Central bank Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon said on Monday that the country had seen an unprecedented attack on payment system connections and that he hoped that measures being taken would stop future incidents.”

Mexico’s move to tighten focus on cybersecurity appears to be in contrast with the United States’ elimination of the cybersecurity coordinator role. Quoting a tweet by Mark R. Warner, a senator from Virginia and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, The New York Times writes, “I don’t see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats.”

Get the full story at The New York Times.