The Internet Security Alliance (ISA) praised the White...

The Internet Security Alliance (ISA) praised the White House Friday for agreeing with federal agencies’ analyses that their existing regulatory authority and voluntary measures instituted through President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity executive order are collectively enough to improve critical infrastructure sectors’ cybersecurity. “Especially when viewed in the context of the world-wide policy debate as to how to deal with the cyber threat, the Obama Administration’s understanding of cyber security is clearly the most sophisticated,” said ISA President Larry Clinton. Current adversaries “are too sophisticated and the technologies and threat vectors change too rapidly for the traditional regulatory model to cope with a dynamic issue like cyber security,” he said. “We need to be as creative as the attackers and find more dynamic mechanisms to answer the threat and finding a way to use the market is probably the best alternative.” The White House released reports Thursday from the Environmental Protection Agency and Health and Human Services and Homeland Security departments on how their regulatory powers could be better aligned with the cybersecurity executive order. The executive order had mandated the three agencies submit those reports. The White House will continue to streamline and harmonize regulations, but these analyses mean “agencies with regulatory authority have determined that existing regulatory requirements, when complemented with strong voluntary partnerships, are capable of mitigating cyber risks to those systems,” said White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel in a blog post Thursday. “Over the next two years, these departments and agencies will jointly investigate and leverage opportunities to improve the efficiency, clarity, and coordination of existing regulations” (http://1.usa.gov/1tpPu2U).