US investing big into Cyber security

February 10, 2016

(Washington )

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]U[/dropcap]nderlining the utmost importance of cyber security in the present digital era and growing risks from new technologies, a national action plan to strengthen USA’s cyber security, has been rolled out by US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.This covers the long term strategy road-map and near term actions required to strengthen the country’s cyber security. Coverage is of the government as well as private sector.

A commission will be set up to develop an action plan, that can be implemented, over the next decade to enhance cyber security awareness as well as protections encompassing the private sector as well as all levels of government.

The commission will comprise of top strategic, business, and technical thinkers from outside of government, including members to be designated by the bi-partisan Congressional leadership, and will present a road-map for future cyber security actions to President Obama before he leaves office by the end of 2016.

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]A[/dropcap] new federal position known as Federal Chief Information Security Officer to drive cybersecurity policy, planning, and implementation across the federal government will also be created by the Obama administration.

“This is the first time that there will be a dedicated senior official who is solely focused on developing, managing, and coordinating cybersecurity strategy, policy, and operations across the entire Federal domain,” said the White House.

Obama’s plan encouraged Americans to move beyond passwords and use multiple factors of authentication to log in to their online accounts, such as a fingerprint or a single use code delivered in a text message.

Meanwhile, Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget, also released on Tuesday, is proposing over $19 billion (₹129466 Crore) in cyber security funding, a 35 percent increase over this year’s spending plan.

The money included a $3.1-billion (₹21123.4 Crore) Information Technology Modernisation Fund to retire, replace, or modernize antiquated IT infrastructure, networks, and systems “that are expensive to maintain, provide poor functionality, and are difficult to secure.”

[dropcap color=”#008040″ boxed=”yes” boxed_radius=”8px” class=”” id=””]B[/dropcap]y this spring, the Obama administration will also publicly release a policy for national cyber incident coordination and an accompanying severity methodology for evaluating cyber incidents “so that government agencies and the private sector can communicate effectively and provide an appropriate and consistent level of response,” the White House said.

It noted that the US Cyber Command is building a Cyber Mission Force of 133 teams with 6,200 members, which will be fully operational in 2018.

In addition, Obama signed an Executive Order that created a permanent Federal Privacy Council, which the White House said “will bring together the privacy officials from across the government to help ensure the implementation of more strategic and comprehensive Federal privacy guidelines.