Communications of the ACM
Obama Calls For New Cooperation to Wrangle the 'wild West' Internet
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed an Executive Order called on the private sector to share information about cybersecurity threats.
Credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times
During a visit to Stanford University to meet with a group of leaders from the technology, finance, health care, and energy sectors, President Barack Obama called on the private sector to take greater steps to share information about cybersecurity threats.
During the event, Obama signed a new Executive Order urging companies to form and join information-sharing hubs to facilitate the easy exchange of data on online threats and receive classified threat information from the government. However, the order stopped short of exempting companies from legal liability that could result from this information sharing, a protection that many in the private sector wanted. Such protections would have to come through legislation, and that legislation has failed to pass in Congress.
Various leaders from the private sector spoke at the event in support of the president's plan, including Bernard Tyson, chairman of Kaiser Permanente, who said the goal of such sharing initiatives was strictly to share threat information, not the sensitive data many public sector firms hold.
Little was seen at the meeting of the hostility many anticipated between private-sector leaders such as Apple's Tim Cook who have clashed with the government over issues such as digital surveillance and encryption.
From The New York Times
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