President Barack Obama signed an executive order urging companies who come under cyber-attack to share information about the attack with other companies and the government will make an effort to limit attacks such as the one that Sony faced.
On Feb. 13, Obama spoke at Stanford University to unveil “the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection.”
The reason behind this executive order is due to the fact that “rapid information sharing is an essential element of effective cyber security because it ensures that U.S. companies work together to respond to threats, rather than operating costs,” according to The White House.
The White House has tried to go through Congress to try to have a cyber-security bill passed, however it has stalled. At this point the only option is to issue and sign an executive order.
So far nine companies have agreed to use the framework that is laid out in this executive order. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, some of those companies include Apple, Bank of America, U.S. Bancorp, Walgreens and Kaiser Permanente.
Obama realizes that as technology is advancing, our laws need to advance as well.
“The very technologies that empower us to do great good can be used to harm us,” Obama said, according to Forbes.
In my opinion this is a true statement. People all over the world have access to information that could seriously injure an individual, a company, or a country as a whole. For example, the incident with Sony. That incident hurt many individuals affiliated with the company. It also made American citizens feel unsafe and even threatened.
After seeing what happened with Sony many companies panicked and wondered if they would be next. This caused companies to tighten their security and review security policies. In a way, it was good that Sony was the company that was targeted. Hackers could have easily targeted a national bank to expose millions of peoples account information or a power company and completely shut down all power going to one area.
In my opinion, it is a positive sign that Obama signed this executive order. By signing this order and urging companies to join him, it will help the U.S. as a whole. Once companies start to share information about the attacks, strategies can be developed. This can include ways to deal with the attacks, ways to protect against attacks and ways to take down hackers. Once this information and patterns are known, it will be easy to take down the hackers once and for all.
I believe this executive order will work. Companies do not want to live in fear that they are going to be attacked and exposed. If they are attacked, they will lose sales and credibility. It may take some time for companies to fully get on board with the idea, but it will be a major benefit to the U.S.
