White House advisory group raises cybersecurity concerns

A White House advisory group says in a new report that federal agencies generally have the correct tools to protect from cyber attacks but face bureaucratic hurdles.

In its draft report circulated Tuesday, the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) said that many of its key concerns deal with organizational woes.

“We believe the U.S. government and private sector collectively have the tremendous cyber capabilities and resources needed to defend critical private systems from aggressive cyber attacks —provided they are properly organized, harnessed, and focused. Today, we’re falling short,” the report reads.

The report says that threat information-sharing programs are hindered by intelligence being classified and clearances being too difficult to obtain.

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Other federal critical infrastructure programs are fragmented across multiple agencies, making it difficult for private-sector infrastructure firms to navigate, according to the report.

The report makes several recommendations, including rapidly declassifying intelligence and streamlining the federal bureaucracy. It also suggests implementing market-based incentives to improve cybersecurity, bolstering the workforce with a public-private expert exchange program and hardening communications systems to use in case of emergency. 

“It’s a really strong proposal,” said Robert M. Lee, chief executive of Dragos, Inc., a firm that focuses on industrial and infrastructural cybersecurity.