Thursday, February 16, 2017

Confusing the two Trump cybersecurity executive orders

In Andy Greenberg's Wired article on February 9, 2017, "Trump Cybersecurity Chief Could Be a 'Voice of Reason," he writes:
But when Trump’s draft executive order on cybersecurity emerged last week, it surprised the cybersecurity world by hewing closely to the recommendations of bipartisan experts—including one commission assembled by the Obama administration.
The described timing and the link both refer to the original draft cybersecurity executive order, which does not at all resemble the recommendations of Obama's Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity or the recommendations of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Cyber Policy Task Force, which both included input from large numbers of security experts. Contrary to what Greenberg says, the executive order he refers to was widely criticized on a number of grounds, including that it is incredibly vague and high level, specifies an extremely short time frame for its reviews, and that it seemed to think it was a good idea to collect information about major U.S. vulnerabilities and defenses into one place and put it into the hands of then-National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn. That original version of the executive order resembled the Trump campaign's website policy proposal on cybersecurity.

The positive remarks, instead, were for a revised version of the cybersecurity executive order which was verbally described to reporters on the morning of January 31, the day that the signing of the order was expected to happen at 3 p.m., after Trump met for a listening session with security experts. The signing was cancelled, and the order has not yet been issued, but a draft subsequently got some circulation later in the week and was made public at the Lawfare blog on February 9.

This executive order contains recommendations consistent with both the Cybersecurity Commission report and the CSIS Cyber Policy Task Force report, mandating the use of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework by federal agencies, putting the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in charge of enterprise risk assessment across agencies, promoting IT modernization and the promotion of cloud and shared services infrastructure, and directing DHS and other agency heads to work with private sector critical infrastructure owners on defenses.

One key thing it does not do, which was recommended by both reports, is elevate the White House cybersecurity coordinator role (a role which the Trump administration has not yet filled, which was held by Michael Daniel in the Obama administration) to an Assistant to the President, reflecting the importance of cybersecurity. Greenberg's piece seems to assume that Thomas Bossert is in the lead cybersecurity coordinator role, but his role is Homeland Security Advisor (the role previously held by Lisa Monaco in the Obama administration), with broad responsibility for homeland security and counterterrorism, not cybersecurity-specific.

Despite Greenberg's error confusing the two executive orders being pointed out to him on Twitter on February 9, the article hasn't been corrected as of February 16.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Lippard,

I apologize for contacting you in this odd way, but as your email does not seem to be publicly available, I found it my only recourse.

I have a longstanding interest in cranks of various types. One crank whom I find particularly interesting and entertaining, albeit of course unintentionally, is the late John Bryant. You, of course, reviewed his "Bryant's Law" in 1992, and in the subsequent exchange alluded to pamphlets from his "Socratic Books" catalog.

I would be very interested in acquiring a copy of "Bryant's Law" and your other Bryant-alia –– if you no longer have use for them, that is. Thus, I humbly ask you to send these materials to my address, which I am happy to provide via email. (I will reimburse you for the cost of shipping.)

Yrs. sincerely,

Arthur

Lippard said...

This is the first I've thought or heard about John "Birdman" Bryant, the crackpot racist kook, since 2007, when he showed up in the comments of Orac's Respectful Insolence blog at ScienceBlogs. Sorry, I can't help you with the book, but it appears someone has been continuing to maintain his website for the last eight years since his death in February 2009, so you may still be able to find a copy of that truly awful book through whoever maintains the site.