Executive Order Aims to Facilitate Sharing of Information on Threats

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/executive-order-cybersecurity/

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
02.12.13

President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Tuesday designed to make it 
easier to disseminate classified information on threats against critical 
infrastructure systems and to lay the groundwork for obtaining information from 
the private sector that would help the government protect critical 
infrastructures in the U.S.

The order, which runs eight pages (.pdf), directs the Attorney General’s 
office, the office of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the 
Director of National Intelligence to issue instructions to their agencies that 
would “ensure the timely production of unclassified reports of cyberthreats to 
the U.S. homeland that identify a specific targeted entity” to Congress and 
also develop a program for providing “classified cyber threat and technical 
information from the Government to eligible critical infrastructure companies 
or commercial service providers that offer security services to critical 
infrastructure,” according to the document.

To that end, the order also calls for the government to expedite security 
clearances to appropriate personnel employed by critical infrastructure owners 
and operators, so that they can receive information necessary to protect their 
systems.

“It is the policy of the United States Government to increase the volume, 
timeliness, and quality of cyber threat information shared with U.S. private 
sector entities so that these entities may better protect and defend themselves 
against cyber threats,” the order states.

[...]

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