Department of Commerce Advances on Cybersecurity, White House Boasts Progress
The White House highlighted its 2015 cybersecurity efforts Thursday, saying its pace on addressing those issues will continue to increase “as the cyber threat continues to increase in severity and sophistication.” The White House’s retrospective went public amid its joint…
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disclosure with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that the OPM data breach revealed in June affected an additional 21.5 million people beyond initial estimates (see 1507090049). The White House said its 2015 cybersecurity efforts include President Barack Obama’s Feb. 13 executive order to encourage cyberthreat information sharing (see 1502130048) and his April 1 executive order authorizing the attorney general and the secretaries of State and Treasury to impose sanctions on foreign-based entities launching cyberattacks against U.S. networks (see 1504010057). More recently, U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott launched a 30-day “Cybersecurity Sprint” in June, ordering federal agencies to review and improve their cybersecurity policies (see 1506150071), the White House said. The Obama administration has also reached cybersecurity-related agreements with Brazil, India, Japan, the U.K. and the Gulf Cooperation Council, the White House said. “Since cybersecurity is about managing risk throughout the entire enterprise over the long-term, not through isolated, one-off actions, the Administration will continue to build on these efforts in the future,” the White House said. Meanwhile, the Department of Commerce said Thursday that the Internet Policy Task Force’s (IPTF) first cybersecurity multistakeholder process will focus on vulnerability research disclosure. The IPTF had been collecting input from industry stakeholders on potential cybersecurity topics it should explore (see 1506010055). The process, which NTIA is set to convene in September, is meant to create common principle and best practices related to security vulnerability information disclosures, said Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary-Communications and Information Angela Simpson in a blog post. Commerce is urging security researchers, software vendors and other industry stakeholders “interested in a more secure digital ecosystem” to participate in the multistakeholder process, Simpson said.