President Obama recently announced the results and his perspective of the 60-day cyber security review he requested earlier this year. This makes him the first president to ever put their name with such a report. Following the results of the 60 day cyber security review, the Obama administration has made clear the urgent need to upgrade our nation's information technology infrastructure with a particular focus on securing those systems.
To provide some guidance to a new presidential administration, a report was commissioned by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) titled, Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency. The CSIS report pre-dates the National Cyber Security Review by a couple years, August 2007 in fact. The CSIS report was driven by some of the industries and governments best security experts recognition of the dire state of our nation's IT security. Here is an excerpt from the Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency preface
The commission's research produced the three major findings described below:
The CSIS findings and subsequent recommendations dovetail very nicely into the finding of the 60day cyber security review requested by President Obama.
Cisco VP and Chief Security Officer John Stewart, who was a valued member of the CSIS commission that helped author the report, attended the White House press conference announcing the 60-day Cyber Security Review results.
Stewart posted his thoughts on the cyber review and potential solutions to some of our countries security woes. Here is a summary of the 3 main points that Stewart emphasized:
- With security, there are opportunities, and a necessity, to tighten the relationship between the private and public sectors. Both sectors can learn from each other and should collaborate on information-sharing, consultative guidance, domestic security, international security, processes, intelligence-gathering, etc. The threat landscape makes this imperative.
-It's important to consider the scope of security. It's not just physical or IT-based, or virtual, or military. It's all of the above, integrated and seamless, and global - after all, U.S. influence and assets extend beyond our national borders, and our security approach must as well.
- It's important, and nice, to see security as a key priority for President Obama and the U.S. government at large.
Shortly after the 60-day Cyber Security Review was released Cisco's John Stewart had this to say:
The administration's report is a culmination of the most focused and through discussion about the security of the nation's online infrastructure," said John N. Stewart, Cisco Vice President and Chief Security Officer. "I'm glad that so many experienced and knowledgeable contributors from the public and private sectors have given voice and
are being heard. It's imperative that the public and private sector continue to collaborate. The good news is that more organizations, companies, and nations are working together to determine how to proceed, and provide leading practice guidance for the next generation to work, live, and play safely in the online environment.
To read stewart's full blog go here: http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/president_obamas_findings_of_the_60...
Stewart has put together three video casts of his ideas and advice for securing this nation's IT infrastructure and services. Watch them here to see Stewart's thoughts around securing the country:
Obama Security Report Part 1 - The Threat Landscape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq01ieFXY5g
Obama Security Report Part 2 - Cybersecurity recommendations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laBURiXrku4
Obama Security Report Part 3 - Rebuilding the Public-Private Partnership
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aemhALDuCA4
I'd like to hear your thoughts about what this country could do to increase cyber security in the near term. Are you in agreement with John Stewart's hypothesis and solutions?
The opinions and information presented here are my PERSONAL views and not those of my employer. I am in no way an official spokesperson for my employer.
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Jamey Heary, CCIE No. 7680, is the author of the Cisco NAC Appliance: Enforcing Host Security with Clean Access book by Cisco Press. Jamey is a seasoned security technologist with over 15 years in the IT field with 10 years focused on IT security. His areas of expertise include network and host security design and implementation, security regulatory compliance, and routing and switching. His other certifications include CISSP, CCSP, and Microsoft MCSE. He is also a Certified HIPAA Security Professional. Jamey is currently a Security Consulting Systems Engineer with Cisco, though the opinions expressed here are his own. Jamey is a member of Network World's Cisco Subnet blog community.
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