FCC will push network providers on cybersecurity, Wheeler says

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2363025/security/fcc-will-push-network-providers-on-cybersecurity-wheeler-says.html

By Grant Gross
IDG News Service
June 12, 2014

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is threatening to step in with 
regulations if network providers don't improve cybersecurity.

The FCC will take steps to encourage cybersecurity in the coming months, 
acting first as a promotor of company-led initiatives instead of a 
regulator, in keeping with its congressionally defined mission to promote 
the national defense and public safety, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. But 
if that doesn't lead to improvements, the agency is prepared to act.

"The challenge is that this private sector-led effort must be more dynamic 
than traditional regulation and more measurably effective than blindly 
trusting the market or voluntary best practices to defend our country," 
Wheeler said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute for 
Public Policy Research. "We believe there is a new regulatory paradigm 
where the commission relies on industry and the market first while 
preserving other options if that approach is unsuccessful."

Echoing the current debate over the FCC's authority to enforce net 
neutrality rules, Wheeler promised that the agency will push network 
operators to improve cybersecurity even as those companies move more of 
their traffic from the more heavily regulated analog telephone network to 
more lightly regulated Internet Protocol-based networks.

[...]



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