Obama Signs Cybersecurity Executive Order

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Comes ahead of controversial privacy bill CISPA.

As expected, U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a cybersecurity executive order following months of discussions with technology firms.

The order will "strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy," Obama said during his State of the Union address.

The executive order doesn't propose new regulations that target private businesses, nor does it seemingly rewrite privacy laws by allowing companies to share confidential information with government agencies without permission.

Republicans are still wishing to do exactly that in their own bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. Obama's order has, however, eased the pressure on Congress to progress with the controversial bill. Still, it'll be reintroduced on February 13 by House Intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican.

As the president signed an executive order as opposed to a new law, the U.S. government is restricted in directing the activities of federal agencies. Some aspects of the order includes expanding "real time sharing of cyber threat information" to firms that operate critical infrastructure, as well as proposing a "review of existing cybersecurity regulation."

"Rather than having the government monitor private networks, it is better for security and privacy to have private entities protect their own systems and networks. Better sharing of what the government knows will enhance that effort," said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

 

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Zak Islam
Zak Islam
Contributing writer

Zak was a contributing writer at Tom's Guide with a focus on security, networking and general computing. As a fan of any and all news relating to hardware, graphics chips or CPUs, Zak has also written for other tech sites such as Tom's Hardware and Digital Trends.

19 Comments Comment from the forums
  • wannabepro
    I am a Republican.. But this man, this Mike Rogers, he shames us all.

    He should resign, and then cast himself into a sea of raging redditors for his misdeeds.
    Reply
  • NightLight
    simple protection: don't wire those machines to the internet. /solved
    Reply
  • Increasing information sharing? Sounds like a juicy target for the next generation of hackers to get past this "new and advanced" security technology...SEEMS LEGIT RIGHT?!
    Reply
  • yamahahornist
    Sounds like Internet regulations to me....... Get out of my freaking Internet Obama!
    Reply
  • instinctgone
    biohazrdfearIncreasing information sharing? Sounds like a juicy target for the next generation of hackers to get past this "new and advanced" security technology...SEEMS LEGIT RIGHT?!
    Defeats the purpose of the internet. It was created and instituted as a means to share information among many users over great distances at great speed. The internet should not be ruled by any one nation but should have it's own governing body separate and without intrusion of any particular government.
    Reply
  • Immoral Medic
    Soooo....file sharing. I wonder if they will get 6 strikes :)
    Reply
  • koga73
    The internet should not be ruled by any one nation but should have it's own governing body separate and without intrusion of any particular government.

    Disagree the internet does not NEED a "governing body" and if there were one it would be controlled by government. The internet needs to remain open and free. Any form of governance will lead to more.

    I feel like this article talks more about what the executive order doesn't do than what it does... Information sharing... thats kind of vague and what was stopping people from sharing this information before?!
    Reply
  • drbaltazar
    yep,USA is doing exactly the reverse of what is needed,basicly giving everybody a back door ,he doesn't understand that if there is a backdoor ,there is no way to prevent its use,whatever his specialist say,countless hacker that hack to secure corp can tell .he should have ordered all backdoor on every device closed instead,now corp won't bother closing those ,government want everything open (prostitute come to mind)yep ,show me the money honey we (everybody with an access to those gateway)got your fantasy!yep we re back to square one about 300 years ago.sad!
    Reply
  • The order will "strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy," Obama said during his State of the Union address.

    Our privacy? He just signed on another 5 years of the Patriot Act of which he was supposedly against and he's worried about our privacy? What a hypocrite!
    Reply
  • master_chen
    >Increasing information sharing
    >Protection

    Pick one, mister President... :\
    Reply