[ISN] White House Slows Cybersecurity Planning

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Tue Sep 17 2002 - 23:48:58 PDT

  • Next message: InfoSec News: "[ISN] Cyber strategy: A starting point"

    Forwarded from: "eric wolbrom, CISSP" <ericat_private>
    
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26061-2002Sep16.html
    
    By Brian Krebs and Robert MacMillan
    washingtonpost.com Staff Writers
    Monday, September 16, 2002; 7:45 PM 
    
    The Bush administration will not unveil the final version of a
    national cybersecurity plan this Wednesday, saying it wants to gather
    more input from the technology industry.
    
    The White House had been expected to offer a detailed strategy for
    protecting the nation's critical information infrastructure from
    attack. Instead, the administration will release another draft of the
    strategy.
    
    "We've said all along that this is a living document," said Tiffany
    Olsen, an aide to White House cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke.  
    "We wanted to make sure we have buy-in from all the parties involved
    before the official release comes out."
    
    Technology firms will have 60 days to submit comments on the latest
    draft, Olsen said, with an official presidential unveiling of the
    final plan scheduled for before the end of the year.
    
    The first solid hints at the delay came at a press conference this
    weekend when White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that the
    cybersecurity strategy was still in development.
    
    "I think it's too soon to predict when any report that the cyber
    people have been working on will be ready ... " Fleischer said on
    Saturday. "I would not leap to any conclusions about when they will
    have something."
    
    Clarke has been working for the past year with technology companies to
    build a national strategy to protect the nation's critical
    infrastructures from cyberattack.
    
    The Bush administration made significant changes to the plan in recent
    weeks, with some of the most controversial elements removed, including
    a call for a national privacy czar and plans to ask Internet service
    providers to bundle firewall and other security technology with their
    service.
    
    "It does give companies a bit of nervousness when a plan of this size
    and magnitude is released," said Mario Correa, director of Internet
    and network security policy for the Business Software Alliance.
    
    Correa cautioned that it would be unfair to characterize the
    administration's action as backpedaling.
    
    "We think the White House has done the right thing here by looking to
    further bring in comment and expertise," Correa said.
    
    Some of the changes were made in the hopes that the IT industry would
    adopt the recommendations voluntarily, rather than being forced to
    adapt to more government regulation, The Washington Post reported last
    week.
    
    The White House has been promoting the Sept. 18 cybersecurity event
    for several months. When Clarke releases the draft at Stanford
    University on Wednesday, a number of government and business
    dignitaries are scheduled to be in attendance, including FBI Director
    Robert Mueller, FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, America Online's
    network security chief Tatiana Gau, and Information Technology
    Association of America President Harris Miller.
    
    
    _______________________________________________________________________
    eric wolbrom, CISSP                     Safe Harbor Technologies
    President & CIO                         190 Goldens Bridge Ct.
    Voice 914.767.9090 ext. 6000            Katonah, NY 10536
    Fax   914.767.3911                              http://www.shtech.net
    _______________________________________________________________________
    
    
    
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