Step 9 of President Obama’s 10-point action plan is:
In collaboration with other Executive Office of the President entities, develop a framework for research and development strategies that focus on game-changing technologies that have the potential to enhance the security, reliability, resilience, and trustworthiness of digital infrastructure; provide the research community access to event data to facilitate developing tools, testing theories, and identifying workable solutions.
I love the sound of Step 9! It is like a great pre-game speech from a well respected coach talking about game-changing strategies and teamwork and relying and trusting each teammate to do their part in their goal to win the game.
I also have to wonder about Step 9 being a bit too focused on Technology, when Lessons Learned show anywhere from 50% to 88% of cybersecurity breaches has been due to Processes and People. The most recent Verizon Business 2009 Data Breach study found that nearly 9 out of 10 breaches could have been avoided if security basics had been followed.
So Cybersecurity, like public and private entities, is dependent on three strong legs – Technology, Processes and People. Step 9 mentions game-changing technologies as well as collaboration, strategies, reliability and trustworthiness, but these terms are used to describe digital infrastructure.
Let’s hope the new Cybersecurity Adviser realizes that Technology tools, Process tools and People tools are all going to be needed to create workable solutions and a framework that will enable and empower government and private entities to enhance security, reliability, resilience and trustworthiness and deliver game-changing results.
Stay tuned for Step 10…and hopefully the announcement of the Cybersecurity Adviser will be coming soon also…