The US’s new national cybersecurity strategy hopes to impose minimum security standards for key infrastructure and shift the responsibility for maintaining system security away from endusers and small businesses onto larger software providers.
The White House released their cybersecurity strategy on Thursday. This marks a shift in Washington’s approach to cybersecurity, moving away from information sharing and collaboration towards stricter regulation of computer systems for increased security.
The strategy looks to enhance cybersecurity by asking critical infrastructure owners and operators to meet minimum security standards. Software companies should be held accountable for any flaws in their products. The U.S. will use all national powers at its disposal to prevent cyberattacks before they occur. The Biden administration plans to continue the “defend forward” strategy of Cyber Command which involves detecting malicious hackers on foreign networks.
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The national cybersecurity strategy “fundamentally reimagines America’s cyber social contract,” Kemba Walden, the acting national cyber director, told reporters in a call Wednesday previewing the strategy. “It will rebalance the responsibility for managing cyber risk onto those who are most able to bear it.”
“The biggest, most capable and best positioned actors in our digital ecosystem can and should shoulder a greater share of the burden for managing cyber risk and keeping us all safe,” Walden said.
