White House Announces Cybersecurity Initiative

President Obama announced the creation of a new Cybersecurity czar to work with the National and Homeland Security Council teams at The White House on Friday. The announcement came with the release of a report, “Cybersecurity Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications Infrastructure,” which followed a 60-day review of current operations and procedures ordered by the President soon after his Inauguration.

“This new approach starts at the top, with this commitment from me: From now on, our digital infrastructure -- the networks and computers we depend on every day -- will be treated as they should be: as a strategic national asset. Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority,” the President said during remarks at an East Room event.

The creation of a new Cyber czar, to coordinate the nation’s cybersecurity policies and activities, is the first recommendation of the review committee, which was chaired by National Security Council official Melissa Hathaway.

“Protecting cyberspace requires strong vision and leadership and will require changes in policy, technology, education, and perhaps law,” Hathaway said in a blog post summarizing the report on whitehouse.gov.

Other recommendations of the review included designating a privacy and civil liberties official to assure those standards are upheld, initiation of a national public awareness and educational campaign, and strengthening public-private partnerships, including to prepare a cybersecurity incident response plan.

On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced the creation of a new military command for cyberspace to complement the government and private-sector efforts detailed in the Administration’s report, according to The New York Times.

The full report is available on the White House website. The White House also released a five-minute video with interviews discussing the Cybersecurity initiative: