2009-06-01
Abstract
President Obama announces multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity effort.
Copyright © 2009 Virus Bulletin
US President Barack Obama has announced a new multi-billion-dollar effort designed to bolster the security of the United States’ digital infrastructure. The plan involves the creation of a dedicated cybersecurity office at the White House and making cybersecurity ‘a national security priority’.
In his speech, Obama referred not only to the need to secure the country’s information and communication networks, but also to the ‘millions of Americans [who] have been victimized, their privacy violated, their identities stolen, their lives upended, and their wallets emptied’.
Obama pledged to work with key players including state and local governments and the private sector to ensure an organized and unified response to cyber incidents in the future; to strengthen relationships between the public and private sectors and encourage collaboration with industry to find technology solutions; to invest in research and development and to begin a national education campaign to promote cybersecurity awareness and digital literacy ‘from our boardrooms to our classrooms’.
With rumours rife of government agencies bringing in the use of ‘magic lantern’ trojans or ‘bundestrojans’ to gather intelligence on suspected criminals (see p.13), and corresponding levels of concern over the moral, legal and practical implications of such practices, Obama also made it clear that the stepping up of the country’s cybersecurity efforts would not involve the monitoring of private sector networks or Internet traffic, saying: ‘we will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans’.
President Obama also promised an open and transparent process as the new cybersecurity strategy is developed – with the government’s 60-day cyberspace policy review available to read from the official website of the White House.
