White House Slows Cybersecurity Planning

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: "eric wolbrom, CISSP" <eric () shtech net>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26061-2002Sep16.html

By Brian Krebs and Robert MacMillan
washingtonpost.com Staff Writers
Monday, September 16, 2002; 7:45 PM 

The Bush administration will not unveil the final version of a
national cybersecurity plan this Wednesday, saying it wants to gather
more input from the technology industry.

The White House had been expected to offer a detailed strategy for
protecting the nation's critical information infrastructure from
attack. Instead, the administration will release another draft of the
strategy.

"We've said all along that this is a living document," said Tiffany
Olsen, an aide to White House cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke.  
"We wanted to make sure we have buy-in from all the parties involved
before the official release comes out."

Technology firms will have 60 days to submit comments on the latest
draft, Olsen said, with an official presidential unveiling of the
final plan scheduled for before the end of the year.

The first solid hints at the delay came at a press conference this
weekend when White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that the
cybersecurity strategy was still in development.

"I think it's too soon to predict when any report that the cyber
people have been working on will be ready ... " Fleischer said on
Saturday. "I would not leap to any conclusions about when they will
have something."

Clarke has been working for the past year with technology companies to
build a national strategy to protect the nation's critical
infrastructures from cyberattack.

The Bush administration made significant changes to the plan in recent
weeks, with some of the most controversial elements removed, including
a call for a national privacy czar and plans to ask Internet service
providers to bundle firewall and other security technology with their
service.

"It does give companies a bit of nervousness when a plan of this size
and magnitude is released," said Mario Correa, director of Internet
and network security policy for the Business Software Alliance.

Correa cautioned that it would be unfair to characterize the
administration's action as backpedaling.

"We think the White House has done the right thing here by looking to
further bring in comment and expertise," Correa said.

Some of the changes were made in the hopes that the IT industry would
adopt the recommendations voluntarily, rather than being forced to
adapt to more government regulation, The Washington Post reported last
week.

The White House has been promoting the Sept. 18 cybersecurity event
for several months. When Clarke releases the draft at Stanford
University on Wednesday, a number of government and business
dignitaries are scheduled to be in attendance, including FBI Director
Robert Mueller, FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, America Online's
network security chief Tatiana Gau, and Information Technology
Association of America President Harris Miller.


_______________________________________________________________________
eric wolbrom, CISSP                     Safe Harbor Technologies
President & CIO                         190 Goldens Bridge Ct.
Voice 914.767.9090 ext. 6000            Katonah, NY 10536
Fax   914.767.3911                              http://www.shtech.net
_______________________________________________________________________



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